Boneyard Tales

by Michael Carter, Shawn Langley (Illustrator), A.A. Medina (Illustrator)

Take a journey through Michael Carter’s boneyard by way of thirty-five bite-sized flash fictions. All with a speculative bent, the tales explore the magical and the real, outdoor life and the American West, delve into the psychology and horrors of crime, correction, and rehabilitation, and provide a glimpse of the end of the world as we know it. What else is waiting to be uncovered in the boneyard? There’s only one way to find out.

Proceeds are donated to the Shriners Children’s Hospitals in Spokane, Washington, and Galveston, Texas, USA.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction

194 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2022

About the author

Michael Carter’s short fiction, creative nonfiction, and photography appear regularly in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. His most bothersome flash fiction was collected in Boneyard Tales (Greenbelt Press 2022). When he’s not at the keyboard or scavenging the boneyard, he can be found at the river’s edge fishing or RVing. He is a lifelong resident of the Western United States, descending from homestead ranchers and dry-land farmers in Eastern Montana, and railroad workers in the Hillyard District of Spokane, Washington.

Reviews

[K.L. Griffiths · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk had a bunch of little flash horror babies...it would read like this collection. Almost every flash surprised me in some way. The efficient and robust prose immediately dropped me into the scene or into a disturbing mind. Never once did I think: this couldn't happen. And that's what's so scary about these stories. You think: yep, that's just how it would go. Even when Carter goes off the reality charts in my favorite, "Choking Instructions," it makes a dark, logical sense. I feel both sick and satisfied at the character's bizarre idea of redemption.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Steve Lorenz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great flash-fiction, an engaging spectrum of weird, scary, provocative short stories. A heavy dash of Rod Serling, some Stephen King, a touch of Cormac McCarthy's western outlook, thrown at you within a few pages makes for a entreating, absorbing read. Some are out loud monster stories SCP kids will like, others with more ephemeral twists. Perhaps one or two leave the reader a bit too lost in the weeds, but otherwise a great read, easy to swallow, often insightful bites of oddness.

[Kerry]

As many of you know, I enjoy flash fiction and short stories. There’s an art to producing a complete story using very few words, and that art of brevity is what I found in Michael Carter’s Boneyard Tales. This “charity” volume (with proceeds benefiting Shriner’s Hospitals), offers thirty-five inventive speculative pieces designed to baffle, entertain, and prove thought. Designed to observe the everyday in unique ways or explore alien landscapes, these little gems would do Rod Serling proud!

[Sarah Huntington · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book of flash fiction, one of the best I've ever read.
Full review up at Kendall reviews

http://kendallreviews.com/book-review...

[ikwi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I greatly enjoyed Michael Carter's collection of dark flash fiction, aptly titled Boneyard Tales. The stories are grouped into four themes, and the grouping is effective, making for an engaging read-through that can be enjoyed in or out of order.

Magical, Real is the first theme, and the tales within are filled with emotion. Opening with "Yetimaker," Carter showcases his gift for immersive language, as the reader can feel every pelt under their fingers. In this group of stories, there are many creatures that should elicit terror, but they have depth and often brim with unexpected tenderness ("Man in the Garage"; "Campfire Snuffer"; "The Deceased of the 120 Primorsky Street"). In "Becoming Bones" and "Check Engine," Carter doesn't flinch as he pushes his characters into surreal absurdity, which makes these stories impactful.

In the theme Out West, Carter, who is an avid fisherman and outdoorsman, truly shines. His stories of nature are full of action and color, just bursting with plants and wildlife, and this vivid abundance provides a stark, effective contrast to the darkness of the stories themselves. The horror stems from the humans ("To Joshua Tree"; "Tatanks Ska"; "Revenge of the Ponderosas") as well as the monsters ("Liver Eater" and "Bannack, Montana") who live out West. There are also blood-curdling fishing tales ("Caddisman" and "What They Caught at Loon Lake"). Carter loves the West, its past and present, and doesn't shy away from the beauty or the ugliness of those who inhabit it.

The characters in the theme Crime, Correction, and Rehabilitation have taken a life (or many), usually with little to no remorse. These stories implicate a climate scientist in "Parole Denial of Doctor Alec Kaiser," a teenager one-upping mean girls in "Marker 53," a devout monk who will do anything to ensure the safety of his monastery in "Taranto," and some luncheon meat in the surreal "Choking Instructions." The setting and the protagonists' motives vary, and the bad guys don't always get what they deserve.

The End, Carter's final theme, contains some strong and emotionally resonant writing: "Hansen Halloween" sees its protagonist come to peace with himself; "The Grind" asks for faith and acceptance amid terrible odds; "The Ordinary" is a great Kafkaesque tale of a man who has lost the zeal for his collection job. At the end, two excellent tales offer very different outlooks on humans after the apocalypse: the survival of the entrepreneurial spirit in "Body Parts Jewelry" stands in contrast to the unbearable bleakness of the memorable closing tale, "The Lash Horizon."

Overall, an excellent collection. Highly recommended for lovers of dark short fiction.

[Bronte Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book via Book Sirens and I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.

I enjoy reading short stories between full length novels and usually have some sort of collection at hand. I generally prefer anthologies with different writers than collections by a single author as I find these are often, by their nature, "samey." This collection does have a distinct voice and some stories are linked loosely by location (which I actually enjoy as it brings a sense of reality and continuity to them), however the quirkiness of the tales kept me interested. The author certainly doesn't lack imagination and while that sometimes throws up stories I was less engaged by it was never to an extent where I skipped any. The writing is generally very competent but a few stories shone for me. There is sometimes a real poetry and poignancy in the writing which surprised me and often subtle humour which in my opinion is never a bad thing in horror. I can't remember if I knew beforehand how short these stories would be and that's my only mild complaint. I'm not really a fan of flash fiction and many of these stories are very short. Sometimes it works but it's not a style I choose on purpose. They are often brief dips into a situation or a characters state if mind which leave a purposely ambiguous ending which is one of the reasons I'm not crazy about flash fiction. It can be very effective and I'm happy to speculate to some extent but generally I have the probably dull preference for a "tidy" ending. All said I enjoyed this collection by a writer new to me and will look out for more of his work.

[Cavak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable windows into another life, time, place. Really does live up to Carter's intention of presenting a vinaigrette of stories, death being a constant throughout the collection. The perspective flips and little doses of heartfelt softness caught my attention too. Glad they did because it kept the entire collection from sounding like "And then the neighbors died again."

Each story is about three or four pages. Carter's writing as brisk and considerate of each word, a real joy to have in flash fiction. Stories could have perhaps dug deeper, here and there. But it's the nature of speculative fiction, a cloud of bubbles that pop. Quite enjoyed how easily the book flows to the next.

Boneyard Tales is a fun read for the reader seeking bite-sized fiction that isn't about the normal everyday. It's not as dark, not as fantasy, just the right amount to dip the mind into intrigue. Looking forward to reading more of Carter's work!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Milt Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boneyard Tales by Michael Carter is, without a doubt, high quality flash fiction. The writing is impressive: the multitude of voices and the variety of styles are astounding, the stories themselves are always interesting and many times thought-provoking. The twists at the end caught me unawares several times, while the length of the story itself (they are quite brief, as proper for flash fiction) contributed to the overall effect. A couple of them I found brilliant: “The Ordinary” was not easy to swallow, it managed to shock me in just a couple of pages; “My Interview for the People Removal Position” read like an actual nightmare. There is no gore, Carter does not rely on anything so obvious: his stories exploit the reader’s expectations, employing atmosphere, language, and location to heighten the sense of unreality and intrigue. This is adult fiction, horror yes, but of the highest calibre.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Alyson Walton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic bite sized horror. Personally, I've never read anything with the western twist but I kind of liked it! These stories have lots of differing viewpoints that prompted me to think of these stories long after finishing them. A good few could be nightmare enducing.
received this book for free.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting set of flash fiction. The stories were very well written and they all had me on the edge of my seat. These stories were chilling and the twists in some of them were awesome. I would definitely be interested in reading more from this author.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Kat M · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved reading these flash fiction stories, they were well written. The stories were well written and I enjoyed all the characters in this.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Travis Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these stories. They’re familiar blue collar scenes, with a sense of heartbreak permeating them, but in an alternate timeline, where strange and menacing things occur. These are some of the coolest stories I’ve ever read. Ten out of ten.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC free from BookSirens and this is my voluntary honest review
Short, weird tales!
Wacky! Strange!
Hard to stop reading!
Wow!
Some what interesting!

[Miguel Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great.

I like that this book is easy to read. You'll be able to squeeze in 1-3 stories a day, while reading a longer novel on the side.

The stories that I enjoyed the most were Yetimaker, Becoming Bones, The Man with a Golden Face, Boilermaker, I Had a Boneyard in the Dakotas, and Monster Inside Me. The stories that I thought were the most disturbing were The Guillotine Grabber, Body Parts Jewelry, and The Last Horizon.

What I like about Boneyard Tales is how each story isn't too long. Once you start one, you'll be able to push through until you're done, letting you stop at the next chronicle. The book cover is fantastic, which will increase the marketability of this book.

This book is not perfect. Most of the anecdotes aren't scary, which was kind of a let-down for me. I thought about giving the author a five-star rating, but there was more than one story in this collection that I didn't care for, and the editing wasn't perfect. I also wish this book had illustrations. However, I would disagree with any other reviewer giving this collection less than a four-star rating.

There are some gems in here that will stick with you after you finish them.

[Christopher Stanley · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like your flash fiction dark and weird, my advice is to read and savour this collection. It’s no secret I’ve been a fan of Michael’s stories for many years, and I’ve enjoyed following his successes in writing contests. I was also delighted when he invited me to provide a blurb for his book, which I’ll reprint here:

“Michael Carter is a master of finding the weird and unexpected in everyday tales of life in small-town America. His debut collection is the stuff of nightmares, to be relished and feared in equal measure.”

There are too many great stories in Boneyard Tales for me to single out favourites, but given the time of year, I will mention one. I’ve always been a sucker for Christmas horrors, and when December arrives, I find myself revisiting Eve, Christmas, which is such a great idea, and so perfect for the season, I would love to see a longer version of it one day.

Highly recommended.

[Maria Carvalho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boneyard Tales is a quirky, unique, and compelling collection of dark, surreal flash fiction. Michael Carter's intelligent writing reflects an innate understanding of the terrifying, and he shows a deft hand at building suspense, often surprising the reader by the end of each well-crafted tiny tale. My favorite story, The Grind, is one of the best flash fiction pieces I have ever read - utterly imaginative, gripping, and evocative. Highly recommended!

[Brett Milam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The bones are rattling from inside our own skin in Michael Carter’s delightfully depraved, creative flash fiction collection out this year, Boneyard Tales. I mean that in the way “the call is coming from inside the house” kind of way: The real monsters are sometimes the ones bone deep, tucked away in the marrow we don’t speak about. But Carter is something of an excavator of the twisted tales we tell ourselves to obfuscate that fact.

I don’t want to compare his collection anything else because it’s uniquely his own style and voice, but to help ground you in a sense of what to expect from this collection, I thought it was a mash-up of The Twilight Zone meets Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, which is the most famous offering that we are the real monsters and the “monsters” we create the tragic figures.

Perhaps my favorite story among the collection (a hard choice to make!) is something in the vein of The Twilight Zone, “Hansen Halloween,” about a man who has purposefully cast himself on an island away from “normal” people because of the disfigurement of his face. On Halloween, he figures on getting into the spirit by wearing a mask, but is bummed when nobody else seems to be playing along when they come to his house; he thinks they only want candy. As it turns out, everyone is playing along because all of the trick-or-treaters are wearing “human” masks! What a delightful story upending what it means to be “normal.”

I also don’t know if writers, like Carter, plan to create an overarching theme with collections or it’s something my own mind uncovers because our brains like patterns, but I couldn’t help but notice that the earnest, desperate and perhaps delusional father was a character that popped up a number of times. First, in, “Revenge of the Ponderosas,” when the trees fight back (which, I think could also be a metaphor for humans encroaching upon nature, and not just a metaphor about fathers), and in, “The Grind,” when a father futilely thinks he can drive his family away from a seemingly apocalyptic scenario.

The creepiest story by far, and one in which I literally had a visceral reaction to, because bugs freak me the heck out, was, “Caddisman.” “

“He gets closer; a stone toss away. I hear his skin fluttering.”

Emphasis mine, eek, what a awful line, which I mean in the most complimentary way. I’ve read that line three times now: In the book, upon writing it here and upon re-reading it when revising this post and each time I shudder. Ugh, I’m serious. But then, this is the story where I thought about Frankenstein because there is something oddly beautiful about the final scene to me. The Caddisman falls into the water and the man reaches in to … save the Caddisman only to then become the Caddisman himself. For some reason, I find that attempt to save something horrible-seeming like the Caddisman, and it transferring to him, lovely.

But gosh, there is so much creativity throughout the collection that I just wanted to keep my feet propped up under a blanket in Carter’s brain. Again, these are flash stories, so by they’re nature, they are short, albeit some are longer than others. Even so, even with the shortest ones, Carter is able to create such vivid, lived-in worlds, whether it’s the ghost town in, “Bannack, Montana,” the back country of, “To Joshua Tree,” or a few decades into the future with, “Body Parts Jewelry,” that you believe these worlds and the characters who inhabit them.

Carter’s writing is tight, smart and ropes you in from one story to the next.

And even one-off quirky pieces, such as, “My Interview for the People Remover Position,” still feels apiece with Carter’s overall universe. Heck, that position requires a Mack-Five truck and in, “Parole Denial of Doctor Alec Kaiser,” they use a Mack-Five truck to reap benefits of creating snow in California! I smell a shared universe!

One of my favorite simple, but sharply effective one-off pieces that felt something out of Chuck Palahniuk’s twisted mind was, “Choking Instructions.” Carter is so adept throughout the entire collection at inverting expectations with such creativity and awfulness. The visual with the hotdogs will stay with me long after I close the book on his collection.

The best part about Carter’s awfulness (which I mean in the most complimentary way? About his scavenging for bones? It doesn’t need to be gruesome. There is not a lot of detail at all that’s overly violent or anything. Sure, a little girl gets her foot run over, and another one gets eaten by a lake monster, but there is nothing graphic in here because there doesn’t need to be. The monsters within these stories live and breathe between the lines. Plus, as I noted, there is also plenty of loveliness here that’s unmistakable between the snarls and the flutters.

If you’re looking for a few dozen flash stories to make you feel something, viscerally, emotionally, creeped out, “Whoa!” at the creative inversions, and marvel at the little horrific universes tucked into such short spaces, then I highly recommend giving Carter’s flash fiction collection a read. You won’t regret it.

Aside from taking a short break to eat some fried chicken, I read it one sitting and was left wanting more (of the book, not the chicken).

[Tara Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a pleasant surprise! I enjoy reading short stories and these are really really short…some are only a page and a half. Which makes them perfect if you read multiple books at a time. Some of these stories left me wanting more so if the author chose to expand on some of them as full novels I’d be interested.

[Rob Marcoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection of flash fiction stories. It very much has a feel of the old Twilight Zone episodes that I used to enjoy as a kid. Michael did a great job on these. Highly recommended!

[Marceline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flash fiction is always a mixed bag because of their word (and sometimes character) limits, making it hard and sometimes impossible to develop people within said stories, with a lot of depth without sacrificing the story itself. I'm not new to flash stories or short stories collected into anthologies, and probably read more of them than actual novels.


The author of this explains how he chose the stories for his anthology and I appreciate knowing how his mindset works in choosing. A lot of the stories are bite sized, bare bones, but there are some that I really enjoyed.

The stories I enjoyed due to their theme were: The Last Horizon, Key-Bearer of The Courthouse, Caddisman and Man in The Garage.

The other stories were well written, but will most likely not stay with me for long. I give this anthology 3 stars and will most likely explore more of what this author has written.


I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Alpheus Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Michael Carter’s work in webzine “The Molotov Cocktail”, renowned for publishing some of the best stand out flash fiction today. I was excited to learn that an anthology of Carter’s work would make print and, believe me, it didn’t disappoint. “Boneyard Tales” is an enticing collection of the macabre, strange and horrific. Carter’s prose is crisp and exact. He punches out sentences with pugilistic grace and power. They hit home. They sting. Flash is a demanding fiction, pithy and powerful. It’s a true art fitting seductive and intriguing narratives in such a limited space and Carter meets the challenge. This is Flash prose at its finest. Many of these stories are set in an environment of small rural townships bordering wildernesses of the unknown and the frightening. Excellent stuff. Do yourself a favour and jump in.

[Alyson Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the freaky, to the frightening, from the uncanny to the unearthly, Michael Carter's compelling debut flash fiction collection, 'Boneyard Tales', offers us a weird side-eye look into the other worlds we pretend don't exist.
Some of my fave mini stories were:- 'Aperture' -really creeped me out, all allusion and inference;
The creature at the heart of 'Taranto' and how it was fed; 'Loon Lake' and the little girl; and the time travelling 'Eve, Christmas'.
These tiny tales cast long, whacky and weird shadows.

[Chris Panatier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Carter's beautifully unsettling story collection shows you the bodies before they're laid to rest. From straight ahead, King-esque horror to sinister atmospheric pieces that pull no punches, Boneyard Tales plucks all the creepiest chords.

[Tom Gumbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lesson in flash fiction writing, Michael Carter's grisly Western horror shorts are the perfect campfire stories. Warning: these stories may keep you up at night or take up long term residency in your psyche.

[Jo Withers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifically twisted, this collection of tales takes the reader on a bone-jarring journey of the unexpected with fiendishly concocted stories of supernatural terror. Perfect for fans of Guillermo del Toro, Boneyard is brimming with unique characters drawn from the dark side of humanity.

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully creepy collection of flash fiction tales, many of which take place in my own backyard of Montana. If you're a fan of flash fiction and the macabre, I can heartily recommend.

[Alyssa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome and unique collection of flash fiction tales! Highly recommend you check this one out.