I never liked mushrooms much before I read this book. Now I know I'll never eat another one again if I can help it.
This is the follow up to The Gulp, which I reviewed last year. Once again we have five interlinked novellas set in a small town on the Australian coast. Known locally as The Gulp, Gulpepper is no ordinary town. It's been possibly deliberately excluded from most maps of Australia. It has a habit of swallowing people, both literally and metaphorically.
This book opens with Gulpepper Curios. Like the opening story of the Gulp, this also features an unlucky outsider who makes the mistake of staying the night and rapidly finds himself in deep trouble. In this case it's a man on a motorcycle trek across the country who falls under the influence of the town. He finds a lot more than he bargained for when he looks for hidden treasures in the town's curio shop. This is by turns funny, gruesome, scary and the ending is diabolically good. I laughed and shuddered simultaneously. It's a great intro for the uninitiated into the world of the Gulp.
Next we visit Cathedral Stacks. A fishing boat is attacked and the crew are stranded on a large rock formation a few kilometers from the "safety" of Gulpepper harbour. What they find underneath the rocks is worse than whatever forced them to abandon ship. A brilliant frying pan into fire story with engaging characters and some beautifully realised horrors deep in the caves. The visual imagery here will stick with you.
The third story is That Damned Woman - a local farmer tries to cover up after his wife dies accidentally and horribly while they're arguing. This sort of thing never goes well in horror fiction and this is no exception. Again this switches effortlessly from jet black comedy to truly scary happenings in the turn of a sentence.
Story 4 - Excursion Troop - a group of venture scouts from a nearby town wander too close to the Gulp whilst on an orienteering exercise. After eating some of the local delicacies they foraged, the horror starts and a chase commences. This is an exciting and horrible (in a good way) story. We feel every ounce of panic that the ever reducing cast of characters is feeling. The ending of this one leads directly into the final story
The Fall - the title story in the collection is suitably apocalyptic on a scale not yet seen in the Gulp stories. It pulls together plotlines and characters from all 9 of the prior stories from both collections. The Lovecraftian hints from the earlier tales come to fruition here like a hideous spawning fungus. The stakes are raised exponentially and the survival of more than the Gulp could be in question.
This is easily as good as the first book in the series. If you've not read the Gulp, a few references in the final story might go over your head, but it covers the essential details to allow you to follow the plot so it's should still be effective as a standalone.
Alan Baxter is a name that has become a benchmark for quality. I've yet to read one of his stories that I've not loved unreservedly. He is a major talent. His books are effortlessly readable, and damned scary.
The fall is released in April I was lucky enough and privileged enough to get an advance reading copy.
It can be preordered on Alan Baxter's website if you don't want to pay mr bezos any more money than you think he deserves
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