Gateways to Abomination

by Matthew M. Bartlett, Jon Padgett (Narrator)

Bizarre radio broadcasts luring dissolute souls into the dark woods of Western Massachusetts. Sinister old men in topcoats gathered at corners and in playgrounds. A long-dead sorcerer returning to obscene life in the form of an old buck goat.

Welcome to Leeds, Massachusetts, where the drowned walk, where winged leeches blast angry static, where black magic casts a shadow over a cringing populace. You've tuned in to WXXT. The fracture in the stanchion. The drop of blood in your morning milk. The viper in the veins of the Pioneer Valley.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Weird Fiction, Collections, Fantasy, Anthologies

3 pages, Audible Audio

First published July 26, 2014

About the author

Matthew M. Bartlett was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1970. He writes dark and strange fiction at his home in Western Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife Katie and an unknown number of cats.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has, simply, blown me away!

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION is not your typical short story collection. What it is is a collection of vignettes-some longer, most short, but all involving the mysterious, dark town of Leeds, Massachusetts. These vignettes are like snap shots of the town's history. Interspersed between these short, sometimes horrifying vignettes, are broadcasts from WXXT, (If it bleeds, it's Leeds!)

"Our Father
Who aren't in Heaven
Hollow be thy name
Thy kingdom done..."

My favorite of the vignettes, this one recurring:
Uncle Red Reads To-day's News The bits of news he relates get increasingly disturbing throughout. Like this one for instance:

"To-day on Petticoat Hill Road, a half of a man split down the center edged from the woods weeping, reports Henrietta Swaggle. The man was baldheaded and emaciated, and left behind him a trail of teeth and innards."

Bartlett's prose is a style that I adore. He had me consulting my Kindle dictionary often. Some readers might not like that, but I do. (I love learning new words!) In addition to that, his style is sparse and sharp. It's not purple prose-it's almost the exact opposite. Style-wise, his work reminds me a bit of Ira Levin-it's descriptive, without being overly wordy. The words he chooses always seemed to be perfect-relaying a lot of information in as few words as possible. Stabbing into your heart and creating a perfect visual in your mind, both at once.

It's like the author pried open my head, poked around in my brain, and came up with the perfect volume for me. Everything I like about horror and dark/weird fiction is in here. With the added bonus of its taking place in the area in which I live. I know these places. I have felt their weirdness in my bones and now I know that someone else has felt that too. (To clarify, I have not ever lived in Leeds, but I've been to most of the surroundings, and to many of the specific locales mentioned in the book.)

From the Quabbin Reservoir, with its 7 flooded towns below the water, to the Hotel Northampton, with its beautiful flowers and balconies, to the now abandoned Mountain Park, (is there anything creepier than an abandoned amusement park?), Matthew Bartlett has gathered up my memories, imbued them with dark visions of floating babies, walking cadavers, and graveyards spewing up their contents, and I will never be the same again.

My highest recommendation!

*Book Source: my personal library. I shouldn't have taken this long to read it!*

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cackling with unfettered glee, these tales allure and infect until they are sated. Perfect.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew M. Bartlett surprised me. I hadn’t read any of Bartlett’s work prior to picking up this debut collection, but a number of friends with impeccable taste had recommended GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION so I decided to give it a shot. I was a little leery at first; the book is self-published, and most of the stories are just a few pages long. There is a dismaying amount of awful self-pubbed books out there, and I’m not generally a fan of weird/horror flash fiction. Some very short stories have intriguing ideas, but there is usually not enough room to develop those ideas for my tastes.

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION, though, deftly avoids that pitfall by tying all of the stories together, making them more short chapters than separate works. Bartlett methodically develops a fantastical version of witch-haunted New England that revolves around mysterious radio station WXXT and a intertwining cast of families neck-deep in serious occult activity.

Bartlett maintains the same tone throughout the 34 stories collected here. Vividly horrific waking nightmares (or are they) and high strangeness of the darkest sort are filtered through characters like the FCC agent in “the investigator” and the hapless boyfriend in “the last hike,” two of the lengthier tales. At times I was reminded of another excellent book, THE SEA OF ASH. Bartlett is not derivative of the superb Scott Thomas, but both set their stories in New England and include truly odd happenings alongside centuries-spanning horror. THE SEA OF ASH was one of the best things I read in 2014, and I don’t make this comparison lightly. While the presentation is different – bite-size morsels instead of a sumptuous feast – both authors are effective at generating chills and holding my easily-distracted attention.

For a self-published book, the layout and design are a cut or three above the norm. I realize this kind of thing is not as critical to some people, but as a layout guy, poor design or too many typos can really pull me out of the story. The general look and feel of GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION is much more that of a small press than so many other self-published books I’ve seen. While not as beautiful as some professionally designed volumes, the book is easy to read and pleasant to look at.

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION is a self-published first collection of generally very short stories, and despite the trepidation those conditions inspire in my brain, it is also an absolute win. I would confidently shelf it in the Weird Renaissance section of my local book store if I had a local book store with such a section. I greatly enjoyed these stories and look forward to more fascinating prose from the estimable Mr. Bartlett.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whenever I feel stuck as a writer lately, I've picked up GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION and have been inspired. Bartlett's imagination is unparalleled in its weird intensity, humor and originality. This book--both a collection and novelistic fever dream in one--is miraculous.

[Karl]

This hardcover edition is copy V of 36 signed numbered editions signed by Matthew M. Bartlett.

[Adrienne L · Rating 5 out of 5]

WXXT. If it bleeds, it's Leeds.

What a horrific and wonderfully, blackly comic and terribly dreadful revelation Matthew M. Bartlett's Gateways to Abomination has been for me. This little book is a collection of stories and other fragments that could also possibly be just chapters of a single book. I guess it depends on your interpretation. All of the fragments center in and around the small village of Leeds, Massachusetts, and there are connecting themes and characters throughout, although the time periods thrown in span hundreds of years. In the modern day, it seems the town is under the sway of an extremely sinister radio station, broadcasts from said station even making up regular sections of the book. And there's something going on with leeches, too.

This is a book that defies description (see above attempt), but it's probably obvious at this point that if you're a reader who prefers a straightforward story with a clear plotline and denouement, this isn't going to be the title for you. If, however, you're a weirdo like me who appreciates a good hallucinatory nightmare, I would encourage you to pick up this little novella. It is made up of all of the pieces of horror that I love - at times atmospheric and unsettling, gory and pointedly horrific, devilishly funny, oblique and unknowable - all thrown into one bloody, creepy, savory, and delicious brew. Here are some examples so you know what you're in for:

Among the most ghastly sounds a man can hear is the sound of a voice in what he thought was an empty house.

Yesterday at twilight in the town of Haydenville, the town Constable did report the sound of a childe singing a ribald song and saying macabre things deep in the sodden forest.

I remember very clearly when my mother told me I was not adopted.

I was on a stool at the counter of the Look Diner, moving my scrambled eggs around the plate in the coagulating pool of ketchup and staring at my gray coffee, when the man walked in carrying his brain in his cupped hands.

I could go on and on like this, but then you'd have the whole book.

I'm off to look immediately for more titles to buy from Matthew M. Bartlett. And I've found that Leeds, MA, is a village that's not too far away from me. I'm half tempted to take a road trip in the near future and explore the surrounding woods and look for the used bookshop.

[Michael Sellars · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a collection of short stories. It's a fractured, discombobulating novel. And I loved every minute of it. This is a rule-breaking book. Weird things happening to weird people in weird places. Bartlett doesn't offer much in the way of footholds. This isn't Stephen King's ordinary people facing extraordinary events. And it isn't extraordinary people attempting to navigate the ordinary (a la Dennis Etchison, Steve Rasnic Tem etc). On the whole, this kind of fiction tends to flounder and fail, largely because it attracts a particular kind of writer: the lazy individual who wants to get the horror imagery that's bouncing around their head out onto the page but lacks the skill and discipline to do it effectively, and independent horror is littered with such writings. Bartlett, however, has skill and discipline to spare. It may be horribly misshapen, but his writing has a spine. It might not even be a human spine, but it's there and it's doing an admirable job of keeping everything painfully aloft. It's probably a lazy comparison but I'm going to make it anyway: Bartlett's work reminds me of David Lynch (or even William Blake) in that it's impossible to know precisely what's going on (overall and, often, at any given moment) but as a reader you have no doubt that the author knows exactly what he's doing and why. A great, great book.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATIONS, by Matthew M. Bartlett, is much more than a "collection of stories". In this book is a grouping of memories, newspaper reports, scenes from nightmares, vignettes of larger happenings, and yes--even the occasional story. The way that the author came up with the concept for this is simply astonishing! These tales from different viewpoints all have one common theme: something is seriously wrong in the town of Leeds, Massachusetts. Some of these stories actually made me shiver, hoping that the radio didn't just happen to turn itself on . . . WXXT is a station that you won't find anywhere else--one that exists "between" the other stations--but only in Leeds.

"The door opened. I wasn't expecting anyone."

Be forewarned--once you hear the sounds from this station, it's already too late . . .

Recommended to fans of physchological horror, who like to turn to something altogether...different.

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 3 out of 5]

The prose in this one was really pleasant but the stories felt a little underdeveloped for the violence and dreamlike nature of the stories to really have the full impact.

[Doctor Gaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

These days, it's tough to be scary.

We as a culture have become largely desensitized to horror in every form. We've seen the human body creatively mutilated in every possible which-way, witnessed the exorcisms of so many fictional females we can't even keep their names straight anymore, and watched enough knife or chainsaw wielding psychopaths plunge their instruments into flesh to last us a lifetime. Each of these elements of horror (and many others) can certainly be executed well (heh heh), but how many of these movies or books are just a cheap scare, and how many of them are sticking with us for good? How many of them are keeping us up at night, worried about what might make its way through the darkened door of our bedroom? When was the last time you watched or read something that really shook you up?

For me, the answers to these questions would be Matthew M. Bartlett's bizarre collection of loosely-connected flash fiction and short stories, Gateways to Abomination. Never have I encountered so many completely insane ideas in one volume. Bartlett is a madman, and to the benefit of his readers.

It is difficult to articulate exactly what is so captivating about this collection. The stories are brief and written in a minimalist style. They serve more like snapshots of crazy happenings in individuals' lives than drawn out stories with developed characters, though that is not to say any of them feel lazily-crafted or incomplete. Quite the opposite. Every sentence feels intentional and tight.

Bartlett's vocabulary is grisly and consistent in tone, as if each descriptive word was chosen for the express purpose of making the reader as uncomfortable as possible. What struck me was that as gruesome and disturbing as some of the scenes in this book are, they do not feel like cheap-shots for the biggest gross-out; this is not splatterpunk by any means. The scenarios Bartlett comes up with make one feel as if they are getting a peek behind the curtain of the universe, and what is to be found there is nearly enough to break the mind.

As I mentioned, the stories are loosely connected in a thematic sense. They all exist within the same universe (in fact, the same city), characters and locations will show up in numerous stories, and what is the deal with this Ben Stockton fellow? Read it and you'll know what I mean. Between the stories, Uncle Red read's 'To-Day's News,' describing horrific and impossible happenings around the local area. Intermixed into the stories are bizarre radio broadcasts, always from WXXT, coming to you from Leeds, Massachusetts.

While the whole collection is worth reading (though maybe only one or two in a sitting; wouldn't want to lose your mind, after all), the stories that really got my goat were Pharaoh, When I Was A Boy—A Broadcast, The House in the Woods, The Theories of Uncle Jeb, The Leech, and The Arrival Parts I & II.

If you're a fan of horror in any form, do yourself a favor and buy this already. Walk into the woods. Follow the dark figure. Turn up your radio.

-D.G.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read: Thunderstorm's Private Reserve

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATIONS, by Matthew M. Bartlett, is much more than a "collection of stories". In this book is a grouping of memories, newspaper reports, scenes from nightmares, vignettes of larger happenings, and yes--even the occasional story. The way that the author came up with the concept for this is simply astonishing! These tales from different viewpoints all have one common theme: something is seriously wrong in the town of Leeds, Massachusetts. Some of these stories actually made me shiver, hoping that the radio didn't just happen to turn itself on . . . WXXT is a station that you won't find anywhere else--one that exists "between" the other stations--but only in Leeds.

"The door opened. I wasn't expecting anyone."

Be forewarned--once you hear the sounds from this station, it's already too late . . .

Recommended to fans of physchological horror, who like to turn to something altogether..different.

[S.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diabolical and delightful. So many writers attempt this kind of story. So many writers fail. GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION leaves them in the dust.

Here is a well-written tale of demons and ancient rituals infiltrating the modern world. The prose is witty, world weary, and very wise. Buy a copy today, before the rest of the universe catches on to the beauty of Matthew M. Bartlett's imagination.

Highly recommended.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew M. Bartlett has given us an amazing performance with the publication of this book. I came away awestruck.

When I picked up this book and glanced at the table of contents as I assumed that the book contained just a bunch of short, some quite short stories. I started reading and not twenty pages in he blew my mind. What appears as short stories, radio broadcasts and newspaper articles make up in fact a complete history of events in a secluded Massachusetts community bordering on the ultimately frightening, strange , horrible and mind warping collection of incidents.

The true horror and bizarreness of the events within this book quickly unfold and become crystal clear the further one ventures forward. I read the book over a period of two days, do yourself a favor and read as much as possible in one sitting in order to be immersed in Mr. Bartlett's vision, much more visceral than H.P. Lovecraft's unspeakable horrors, as these are spoken.

I hope that Mr. Bartlett returns to this setting.

Highly Recommended for readers of the uncanny, bizarre and horror.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many worms and viscera devalue the currency, but this is a pretty fair example of a school of modern horror writing that seemingly begins at the point where the Lovecraftian narrator enters a state of hallucinatory madness. If Lucio Fulci had written expressionist fiction, this might be it. My problem with this school is that I find myself flipping pages and becoming numb -- when all things unspeakable are possible, nothing is unspeakable. The narrators here are all more or less the same person; there is no conventional story arc to hang onto. The nightmare (and possible metaphor) of alienation is the whole point of the tale. Gateways is, however, a way above average example of the genre. For an insanely cursed and haunted backwater, Leeds is a surprisingly real place, with a sense of history and WXXT, a station I wish I could receive on my car radio. I think the scariest moment, a real gem, involves a smudge of paint on a dentist's door, and the leeches are the most likable characters in the book.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

An instant modern cult classic. You will not read anything quite like this ever again, by any other author. It is gorgeously vile. Bartlett's writing style is established as uniquely his, early on, and he demonstrates great mastery over language. The story is out of control and yet the narrative never loses its own lunatic logic and direction. This horror story is a gem of unconventional story telling. It doesn't merely frighten in the common manner; it upsets and disturbs and distresses the mind by weaving a lucid nightmare reality. I couldn't recommend it enough.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Just. Wow.

I know why people like Nathan Ballingrud rate Bartlett now. Fuck me. That was crazy.

Full review to come... when I can gather up the mess that is my brain right now.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Welp. That was fun if you, like me, enjoy being terrified. GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION is a great example of a book that amounts to more than the sum of its part. It's a series of vignettes, yet it's not a short story collection. It's not quite a novel either. It's a series of mysterious broadcasts (or are they?) depicting a Massachusetts city caught in the clutches of a Satanic cult. The narrative is super fragmented, yet loosely structured around recurring characters (Ben Stockton, Nathan Whiteshirt, Uncle Jeb, etc.) and recurring events (the gathering in the woods). The more you progress through this collection, the more sense it makes and the more terrifying it gets.

GATEWAYS TO ABOMINATION's best asset is that it portrays violent and terrible events, loosely connects the dots, but leaves many gaps for the reader to fill and freak out over. This is the kind of book you need to read in one sitting for maximum effect. It's one of these pleasant surprises of self-publishing.

[Michael Hicks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew M. Bartlett is an author that's become a fast favorite of mine thanks to his high-concept and ultra-weird method of story telling. Through a mosaic narrative, Bartlett explores the effects of the cult radio station, WXXT, broadcasting in Leeds, Massachussetts - and I mean "cult" literally. While WXXT is most certainly an underground broadcast, hidden in the airwaves and most certainly not FCC sanctioned, it's also a gateway for all kinds of unsettling and otherworldly forces. Listeners who stumble across this broadcast are forever changed, or become privy to the occult influences surrounding them, usually in strange and disastrous ways.

Listeners expecting a straight through-line in plot will be completely lost, but the disorientation that arises from Bartlett's style helps give life to the proceedings. Bartlett is engaged more in an exploration of concepts rather than an unraveling of story, forgoing the neat and typical pyramidal story structure or breadcrumb trail of Point A to B to C. It might be better to treat Gateways to Abomination as a short story collection, but even that isn't entirely correct as characters come and go and reoccur, and all are linked in some fashion to WXXT itself. Here, a listener makes acquaintances with a strange man who carries his brain, another seeks dental surgery for a strange growth in his mouth, goats are murdered, and the FCC dispatches an investigator to uncover the secrets of the strange frequency emanating from the woods, and Uncle Red reads the news.

Do not go into the woods.

Few authors can conjure such odd grotesqueries and infect the world with such weird wonders as effectively as Barlett, and Gateways to Abomination is a highly effective and compulsive study in the strange. I'm as entranced as I am oftentimes repulsed by Bartlett's imagination, and it really is a thing of wonder. I'm positively hooked on his conjurations and the expansive mythos he's developed around the conceptual form of his demonic radio station and its impact on Leeds, across books like this and his charitable chapbook for Nightscape Press, If It Bleeds, as well as his various short stories, like "The Black Cheese," in the recently released anthology of pizza horror, Tales From The Crust.

For as much as I unabashedly love Bartlett's words, I think I just might love Jon Padgett reading those words even more now. I haven't listened to Jon's narrations previously, but I am a quick convert and am now desperate for him to read some more WXXT stories (and the sooner the better!). He has a marvelous voice, one that changes to suit the story and characters as needed, turning from broadcast journalist to demonic goat man on a dime, and he inhabits this world as if he's lived in Leeds his whole life.

For as much as I recommend reading Bartlett, I just might recommend listening to this audiobook even more if you're able and willing.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the subtitle, these are less 'collected short stories' than fragments and shards of one, deeply creepy story. A strange cult involving leeches, goats and a pirate radio station takes over a town in Massachusetts. Some of these tales are fragments in which Bartlett unleashes wave after wave of grotesque, unsettling imagery.

My favourites were: 'When I Was A Boy - A Broadcast' with its twisted sexuality, the 'ballad of Ben Stockton' and 'arrival' sequences (the latter numbered in reverse, interestingly), 'Path' with its weird multiplication of elements, and anything with 'uncle' in the title.

While most of this is driven by the notion of strange cults, Bartlett is especially good with twisting everyday details into something terrible and at visceral body horror. Towards the end, I felt a certain dulling of impact as certain sequences like 'The Investigator' felt a little stale, but the collection ends strongly with the crazed ... something... of 'The Reddening Dusk'.

I look forward to reading more by Bartlett, who has a fertile, diseased imagination and a versatile prose style, pulpy but also artful.

[Orrin Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

In his best moments, Matthew M. Bartlett conjures a poetry of decadence and decay that rivals Poe. This was Bartlett's debut, though I'm only coming to it after being introduced to his grotesque and gorgeous prose in Creeping Waves and The Stay-Awake Men. This early volume (I read the one with the blue cover, if it matters) shows all the same delirious promise as those tomes, and sucks you into the bizarre world of Leeds, one abominable radio broadcast at a time.

If you aren't already reading Bartlett, crank up the volume, turn your dial all the way to the left, and prepare for something that nothing can prepare you for.

[Vicente Ribes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro de terror diferente, especial y muy macabro. El escritor independiente Matthew M. Bartlett nos introduce en este libro al peculiar y satánico mundo de Leeds. Una ciudad donde extraños sucesos, rituales, personajes de pesadilla, un hombre cabra que parece dominarlo todo y un culto a las sanguijuelas revolotean en el lugar.
A través de diferentes relatos, algunos muy cortos y otros más completos Bartlett nos mete de lleno en los extraños sucesos que ocurren en el lugar. Algunas historias a destacar son las del chico que viaja desde otra ciudad para enterrar a su abuelo en Leeds y encuentra el horror. O la del investigador contratado para averiguar sobre el culto del pueblo que acaba en una extraña libreria.
Entre relato y relato tenemos las tetricas emisones de una radio local enumerando sucesos oscuros que van sucediendo durante el dia.
Un particular universo de horror, mezcla de creepy pasta y mito que el autor ha seguido explotando en otro libros y que me ha encantado.

[John Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bartlett spins the dial to a radio jacked into the psyche, where the nightmare world unravels and a surreal dream-logic pushes the tales along with real intent in this curious and most satisfying collection that seems at all times to be spilling off the edge of the page. That's the dream-logic in motion and often taking over; at times, what happens seems to have come to Bartlett right then, at the moment he types whatever mad words are to follow. Some tales come off as bruised snapshots suggesting something more, but the collection as a whole resonates with a distinct tone that connects them all. Fascinating and…self-published? Some smart publisher needs to sign Bartlett up Now. He knows what he’s doing and I Want More.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

You're listening to WXXT- an eerie, ghastly Western Massachusetts radio station that haunts its listeners and announcers alike. This collection of vignettes is most definitely not for those with vivid imaginations and weak stomachs- demonic goats, masses of worms, rotting flesh, cadaverous humans abound in these stories. Gateways to Abomination makes Welcome to Night Vale sound like A Prairie Home Companion.

[Charlie Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read and thoroughly entertaining. This was a collection of short stories that were not independent from one another but were connected to form one flowing story. I was somewhat reminded of Palahniuk's 'Haunted'.
So far my Halloween reading of short story collections has not been disappointing. On to my next ride.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grabbed this based on the high ratings it has here, the intriguing idea of an occult radio station that pipes out all sorts of weirdness, etc. I hate to say it, but I came away fairly unexcited. The author did do a good job at keeping the theme rolling through the vignettes and flash fiction and, even very occasionally, an actual short story, but at the same time, it was too often too disjointed, and often I felt like he was adding in the grotesque or the sexual just for the sake of it being there. It was a bit too repetitive for my tastes as well. All that being said...it did keep me reading. When a story had a chance to actually blossom, I enjoyed it more. There are 34 stories that are interconnected in the 145 pages here. I guess flash fiction isn't really my thing. I'd be interested to check out longer pieces, based on the handful of stories here that got to or past the 10 page mark, but I'm not going to be in a rush to do so.

[Paul Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible read.
Original.
Transgressive.
This DIY release is what punk rock looks like in 2015.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always found little obscure radio stations interesting, especially in the backwoods when going on roadtrips. This book is about an obscure radio signal and this book is a bit obscure itself, so that adds to the whole feel of reading something that's actually forbidden, dangerous. It reminds me of when I was about 15 years old and I accidentally discovered the "Hour of Slack" produced by the "Church of the SubGenius" on my clock radio one night on an obscure little college station. I was entranced, asking, "WTF is this?!" It also remind me a bit of Old Time Radio dramas which I love.

I almost gave this five stars. After reading mostly weird fiction for a few years now it inevitably becomes harder to surprise or impress me, but this book did. This is an author whose name will now generate that *PERK* when I see it.

This is a really hard book to describe and hard to rate as well. In content it's incredibly gory, deliciously weird and very unpredictable. I mean, like, almost Cisco-level unpredictable. The brief chapters in the book display great imagination, and it overflows with ideas. It's exceedingly weird too, not just in what happens, but in the way it's told. It's a series of interconnected short chapters/prose poems/stories. The stories are told in parts, and sometimes part 2 comes before part 1, increasing the disorientating effect.

Given the nature of the material, and it's short length at 28,000~ words this would ideally be read in one day. Unfortunately I kept getting interrupted! I could see re-reading this book, I think it deserves a close reading and I'm sure I didn't catch all the connections made between the stories.

[Chad Pilcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Bartlett's darkly simmering star is on the rise these days. This wicked little self-published collection has been garnering attention and praise from some of Weird fiction's most bioluminous worthies, and rightly so. Gateways is a tight bundle of tales, vignettes, and interludes which comprise an uneasy survey of occult happenings in and around the singular town of Leeds, Mass. and the darkling woods which border it. Ever-lurking in the background radiation of Leeds is WXXT, a spectral pirate radio station gone a-roving 'cross airwaves and brainwaves, whose gravid mutterings afflict all manner of revelation and tribulation upon hapless listeners. Through sundry band scans and snapshots, the reader bears trembling witness to terrible Events great and small as reality begins to unravel.

Bartlett mines the rich vein of New England occult history and lore to good effect, while infusing just the right dose of pulp surreality and a pinch of grue. In Leeds and its denizens, we see a fine new mythology in the birthing--one which carries forward in several other limited-edition chapbooks, as well as a forthcoming follow-up collection. WXXT isn't signing off anytime soon, and that can only be a good thing for us, if not for the town of Leeds.

[Tracy Conway · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is the epitome of an echo chamber written strictly for fans of pulp horror and cheap fantasy. It is the equivalent of a Netflix original that basically writes itself once all the user data has been combed through to bring us some of the most generic representations of genre ever created. I had such high hopes for this novel especially after reading many of the reviews, but I should have delved deeper into what else those users had read, revealing it to be an over abundance of graphic novels. When authors and consumers pigeonhole themselves into strictly consuming and producing media of one genre, you leave yourself with nowhere to go and continually perpetuate the same mediocre recycled content forever. Ultimately you can’t be a competent author who produces fresh and lasting ideas or an informed reader stimulated by those ideas by mucking about in a conceptual prison.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one bloody, mind bending ride from hell.

"...they will host the Leech and the Leech will simmer in its tubes and conduits and its tanks..."