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The Dead Box: And Other Stories To Scare You Shitless
18 stories of raw, primal terror, brought to you by award winning writer D.A. Madigan, the author of best selling urban horror novel HARVEST NIGHT and local zombie favorite DERBY CITY DEAD. THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS delivers the goods with a bloody vengeance. Don't be far from your bathroom when you read it.
521 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 8, 2020
About the author
D.A. Madigan
114 books15 followerspart time adult, full time husband and father, well into my advanced youth, deeply committed to making fetch happen
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 1, 2020
None of the stories were scary. I also found it irritating that nearly every character in every story seemed to be a stereotype. I pushed through to finish it because I kept hoping there would be that 'one' that I enjoyed but unfortunately that moment never came.
October 13, 2020
Stories that mess with your mind…these were my favorite in D.A. Madigan’s collection, “The Dead Box.” His love of pulp themes in popular culture flavor this anthology of undead beings, alien mind-melds, and just plain twisted tales. The author has added intros to the stories, brief prefaces explaining how the pieces came to be. It’s an interesting peek into his process. The stories that stuck hardest with me built slowly—first showing a world a hair off kilter, then getting weirder and weirder until that final punch at the end. If you’re looking for twisted-scary rather than slasher-scary (although there are scenes of blood and guts, a warning for the squeamish), give this collection a try. While I wasn’t check-under-the-bed-and-behind-the-shower-curtain scared, these stories kept me up past my bedtime because I needed to know what was going to happen next.
October 25, 2020
Great anthology
Great anthology. Very creepy stories. I will definitely read more of this author. I suggest you do the same !
Great anthology. Very creepy stories. I will definitely read more of this author. I suggest you do the same !
October 17, 2020
Great Read
I don't usually review the books I read but this is an Awesome read. I would Read Anything he (D. A. Madigan) writes. Awesome just truly Awesome.
I don't usually review the books I read but this is an Awesome read. I would Read Anything he (D. A. Madigan) writes. Awesome just truly Awesome.
October 9, 2020
Excellent horror
Very different with many twists and turns! I highly recommend and will continue to follow this author’s work. ............. ...
Very different with many twists and turns! I highly recommend and will continue to follow this author’s work. ............. ...
Read
October 31, 2020So here's something people should know abouto THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS -
Obviously, like any other creator, I'd prefer unadulterated love for all my work. Nonetheless, I know nothing pleases everyone, and while I'm not objective enough to judge the literary quality of my own work, I'm certainly aware that not everything is for everyone. There have to be people out there who will read this anthology, in whole or in part, and not enjoy it, not like it, not think highly of it. I get that, I accept that. I don't take it personally.
What I do take personally, though, and think is vicious and wrong and cowardly and immoral and unprofessional and the worst sort of bullying and attempted intimidation, is people with their own agendas, who have personal grudges against me, attacking my work because they're too gutless to attack me. Attacking my work when they've never even read it, because they are so angry with me over things that I've said that they've vowed they will NEVER read my work... and still, they'll go to the book's Amazon page, and maybe even here, and hang a shitty review of work they haven't read, to get at me.
I'm not saying that's happened here. I have no real proof. There are a few very negative reviews posted here by people I don't know and, well, I don't know them. Maybe they honestly don't like my work, maybe they honestly read the book and didn't care for it at all. That's certainly legit.
However -- I'm very outspoken. I post a lot on the internet and a great many of my views and opinions are, shall we say, controversial. I posted one of those opinions on the Facebook page of the anthology I originally wrote my short story "The Dead Box" for. That opinion was not personal, it was entirely about the anthology and the work in it. I'd paid for the anthology (I paid considerably more than cover price because I contributed to the Kickstarter set up to fund the anthology), I'd read it, my opinion was informed, I posted it. The moderator of the Facebook page (I don't know who it was, my assumption has been, it's one of the editors of the antho) responded within minutes of my post, first advising me that the ruling factor on what stories were accepted and rejected for the anthology was not writing quality but timing (which strikes me as just ENORMOUSLY unprofessional, but, whatever), after which, they attacked me personally, calling me unprofessional for posting my opinion, advising they didn't remember my story but based on my post they were sure it had been rejected for quality (a statement I also find to be childish and unprofessional; they don't remember my work yet they're sure they rejected it for writing quality? Oh my) . This set the tone for at least a dozen other people to come onto the thread and also attack and abuse me personally. I was told I needed to make up a story about being hacked and take down my original post or my career was dead, among other things.
And again, let's be clear -- I posted my truthful opinion about an anthology I'd paid for and read. That the opinion was not well received, well, yeah. A lot of my opinions are not well received. Nontheless, what I said was, I wrote "The Dead Box" specifically for an anthology that had rejected it. I considered "The Dead Box" to be one of the best things I'd ever written, so I included it in my own anthology, using the story's name in the antho title. And ever since I published THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS, it has sold hundreds of copies and been consistently in Amazon's Top 100 Horror Anthologies... and from what I could see, that meant it had considerably outperformed the anthology that rejected it.
Within hours of my first post to that FB page, my anthology's first negative review was published. It was a long review, and yet, oddly undetailed. It jeered about editing problems -- and who would focus on that, but editors? -- and stated my writing and my work were poor, but for all that, it cited nothing specific. No story titles, no plot points, no characters. Most interesting, anyone who has read any of my anthologies knows I write introductory essays to each anthology and to each short story explaining some bit about my process or the history of the story, and this lengthy put down didn't mention any of that... which I'd think someone would, if they'd read the antho and really hated it.
My conclusion was and remains, this review was a fake, meant to make me feel bad and to spoil my sales. A fake, motivated by childish malice and petty spite. The condescension and contempt in the review were virtually identical to the despicably unprofessional tone of the FB page's moderator's responses to me.
Then, recently, I posted another comment on this controversy to my own FB page, and again, within hours, another negative review appeared -- only the second that has ever showed up on the book's Amazon page. This one was shorter, but it ended with an extremely nasty and vicious implication that, because some of the characters in my stories were racists, homophobes, and misogynists, I probably was one, too. This is an old, old calumny only ever sincerely offered by the kind of morons who think if you write about lesbians you must be one, and I don't think the person who posted the negative review is that dumb... I think they're simply being disingenuous. They want to hurt me, because they're mad at me, and they're mad at me because I posted an opinion that was entirely professional, about a professional piece of work I had every right to post an opinion on.
Anyway. Obviously I can't review my own work in any meaningful way. I used to have a blog here and I wanted to post this information there, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I wanted to post it as a question but there wasn't enough space. So I'll post it here, and if I have to rate the book to post it, of course I'm going to give it five stars, because I genuinely believe this collection contains some of my best writing ever... I'm especially fond of "The Dead Box", "Pop Up", and "Grease Trap". And while I don't think it's at the apex of my talent or anything, I had a lot of fun writing "Bang Bang Bang" and I hope others had fun reading it.
That's all I wanted to say... that apparently, there are people out there who are angry at me, and who, not having read my work, have vowed to never, ever, read my work. And still, they are attacking me by hanging bad reviews on my work. I'm not saying these people are behind every bad review. I am saying, most of the people who have read this anthology seem to like it. Many of them, in fact, add to their review that they will read more of my work, which is the nicest thing anyone can ever say about my writing. Now, certainly, there are people who may disagree. But I will say, I've yet to see a negative review of this anthology that mentions so much as a single detail of the actual contents of the anthology. So... all I'm asking is, if you're at all interested, read the book yourself. Or just pick out a story at random and try it. In fact, if you want to send me an email address, I will send you a free PDF of the anthology, so you can read it for yourself. I can't do any better than that.
Thanks for your time.
D.A. Madigan
Author, THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS
Obviously, like any other creator, I'd prefer unadulterated love for all my work. Nonetheless, I know nothing pleases everyone, and while I'm not objective enough to judge the literary quality of my own work, I'm certainly aware that not everything is for everyone. There have to be people out there who will read this anthology, in whole or in part, and not enjoy it, not like it, not think highly of it. I get that, I accept that. I don't take it personally.
What I do take personally, though, and think is vicious and wrong and cowardly and immoral and unprofessional and the worst sort of bullying and attempted intimidation, is people with their own agendas, who have personal grudges against me, attacking my work because they're too gutless to attack me. Attacking my work when they've never even read it, because they are so angry with me over things that I've said that they've vowed they will NEVER read my work... and still, they'll go to the book's Amazon page, and maybe even here, and hang a shitty review of work they haven't read, to get at me.
I'm not saying that's happened here. I have no real proof. There are a few very negative reviews posted here by people I don't know and, well, I don't know them. Maybe they honestly don't like my work, maybe they honestly read the book and didn't care for it at all. That's certainly legit.
However -- I'm very outspoken. I post a lot on the internet and a great many of my views and opinions are, shall we say, controversial. I posted one of those opinions on the Facebook page of the anthology I originally wrote my short story "The Dead Box" for. That opinion was not personal, it was entirely about the anthology and the work in it. I'd paid for the anthology (I paid considerably more than cover price because I contributed to the Kickstarter set up to fund the anthology), I'd read it, my opinion was informed, I posted it. The moderator of the Facebook page (I don't know who it was, my assumption has been, it's one of the editors of the antho) responded within minutes of my post, first advising me that the ruling factor on what stories were accepted and rejected for the anthology was not writing quality but timing (which strikes me as just ENORMOUSLY unprofessional, but, whatever), after which, they attacked me personally, calling me unprofessional for posting my opinion, advising they didn't remember my story but based on my post they were sure it had been rejected for quality (a statement I also find to be childish and unprofessional; they don't remember my work yet they're sure they rejected it for writing quality? Oh my) . This set the tone for at least a dozen other people to come onto the thread and also attack and abuse me personally. I was told I needed to make up a story about being hacked and take down my original post or my career was dead, among other things.
And again, let's be clear -- I posted my truthful opinion about an anthology I'd paid for and read. That the opinion was not well received, well, yeah. A lot of my opinions are not well received. Nontheless, what I said was, I wrote "The Dead Box" specifically for an anthology that had rejected it. I considered "The Dead Box" to be one of the best things I'd ever written, so I included it in my own anthology, using the story's name in the antho title. And ever since I published THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS, it has sold hundreds of copies and been consistently in Amazon's Top 100 Horror Anthologies... and from what I could see, that meant it had considerably outperformed the anthology that rejected it.
Within hours of my first post to that FB page, my anthology's first negative review was published. It was a long review, and yet, oddly undetailed. It jeered about editing problems -- and who would focus on that, but editors? -- and stated my writing and my work were poor, but for all that, it cited nothing specific. No story titles, no plot points, no characters. Most interesting, anyone who has read any of my anthologies knows I write introductory essays to each anthology and to each short story explaining some bit about my process or the history of the story, and this lengthy put down didn't mention any of that... which I'd think someone would, if they'd read the antho and really hated it.
My conclusion was and remains, this review was a fake, meant to make me feel bad and to spoil my sales. A fake, motivated by childish malice and petty spite. The condescension and contempt in the review were virtually identical to the despicably unprofessional tone of the FB page's moderator's responses to me.
Then, recently, I posted another comment on this controversy to my own FB page, and again, within hours, another negative review appeared -- only the second that has ever showed up on the book's Amazon page. This one was shorter, but it ended with an extremely nasty and vicious implication that, because some of the characters in my stories were racists, homophobes, and misogynists, I probably was one, too. This is an old, old calumny only ever sincerely offered by the kind of morons who think if you write about lesbians you must be one, and I don't think the person who posted the negative review is that dumb... I think they're simply being disingenuous. They want to hurt me, because they're mad at me, and they're mad at me because I posted an opinion that was entirely professional, about a professional piece of work I had every right to post an opinion on.
Anyway. Obviously I can't review my own work in any meaningful way. I used to have a blog here and I wanted to post this information there, but I can't seem to find it anymore. I wanted to post it as a question but there wasn't enough space. So I'll post it here, and if I have to rate the book to post it, of course I'm going to give it five stars, because I genuinely believe this collection contains some of my best writing ever... I'm especially fond of "The Dead Box", "Pop Up", and "Grease Trap". And while I don't think it's at the apex of my talent or anything, I had a lot of fun writing "Bang Bang Bang" and I hope others had fun reading it.
That's all I wanted to say... that apparently, there are people out there who are angry at me, and who, not having read my work, have vowed to never, ever, read my work. And still, they are attacking me by hanging bad reviews on my work. I'm not saying these people are behind every bad review. I am saying, most of the people who have read this anthology seem to like it. Many of them, in fact, add to their review that they will read more of my work, which is the nicest thing anyone can ever say about my writing. Now, certainly, there are people who may disagree. But I will say, I've yet to see a negative review of this anthology that mentions so much as a single detail of the actual contents of the anthology. So... all I'm asking is, if you're at all interested, read the book yourself. Or just pick out a story at random and try it. In fact, if you want to send me an email address, I will send you a free PDF of the anthology, so you can read it for yourself. I can't do any better than that.
Thanks for your time.
D.A. Madigan
Author, THE DEAD BOX AND OTHER STORIES TO SCARE YOU SHITLESS
July 13, 2020
For a fantastic book
This book does with the title claims it will do I’ve Read many short whore collections and I have to say this one was one of the best ones I’ve ever read I recommend everybody who likes horror short story books to read this book I definitely think this book needs a five star rating and a good review
This book does with the title claims it will do I’ve Read many short whore collections and I have to say this one was one of the best ones I’ve ever read I recommend everybody who likes horror short story books to read this book I definitely think this book needs a five star rating and a good review
June 28, 2020
Highly Recommend These Apocalyptic Horror Stories
Well done and an enjoyable horror read. I like the apocalyptic nature of many of the stories; a unique take on many of them. I’m already looking for the other anthologies this author has contributed to.
Well done and an enjoyable horror read. I like the apocalyptic nature of many of the stories; a unique take on many of them. I’m already looking for the other anthologies this author has contributed to.
September 10, 2020
Good read
Great read for when you need to go somewhere far, far away from your so called real life. 10/10 weirdos recommend!
Great read for when you need to go somewhere far, far away from your so called real life. 10/10 weirdos recommend!
October 27, 2020
Not very scary. Not very good.
The author seems to think more of his ability than the market does. Pretty much the entire book has previously been published elsewhere. Many of the stories involve unoriginal ideas; a few are even blatant ripoffs of others works. They only thing that he excels at is in character hate speech - too good perhaps?
The author seems to think more of his ability than the market does. Pretty much the entire book has previously been published elsewhere. Many of the stories involve unoriginal ideas; a few are even blatant ripoffs of others works. They only thing that he excels at is in character hate speech - too good perhaps?
December 20, 2020
Wonderful Unusual Set of Stories
I couldn't put this book down!! Each story was somewhat explained by the author beforehand, and I liked that... it set the story up for me. ALL of them are different and but they're all scary.
I couldn't put this book down!! Each story was somewhat explained by the author beforehand, and I liked that... it set the story up for me. ALL of them are different and but they're all scary.
December 22, 2020
This was a solid success
Great stories. The authors notes swing between entertaining and annoying. I'm definitely checking out at least one of his novels.
Great stories. The authors notes swing between entertaining and annoying. I'm definitely checking out at least one of his novels.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews