Okay, so before I get started with anything else about this
book, can we please talk about this cover art? You won’t get the full effect
just viewing it on this blog, since it’s a mega-cool wraparound, but holy mutha
this is one of the nicest covers I’ve seen for a horror book in such a long
time. It’s so weird to think how many awful covers there are out there,
uh…“gracing” the covers of various horror novels and anthologies, when the genre
is more perfect than any other for the grotesquely gorgeous. Yet, somehow, so
few get the visuals right. Makes no sense to me. But Brad C. Hodson and
Benjamin Kane Ethridge got it right when they chose Aeron Alfrey as their
artist. Luckily, that’s not the only thing the editors got right.
With Madhouse, Hodson and Ethridge have chosen to take an
approach that is becoming more popular these days (an approach I’m all for and
one I’m shocked was not more common in the past): the shared world anthology.
However, Madhouse is more than just a collection of stories that happen to take
place in the same universe. The shorts written by the various authors also
share space with chapters written by the editors. The result: a fairly cohesive
novel masquerading as an anthology. I know it sounds like I’m tickling the
editors’ pink parts, but they really did a bang up job of creating this world
and guiding the authors they chose to adhere to it and keep a certain amount of
continuity. A few characters even appear throughout different stories (Drake is
an especially memorable and detestable character). I imagine this was a serious
pain in the tuckus to orchestrate, but the hard work paid off.
The premise? A major sandstorm hits a behavioral center in
Arizona and things go batshit crazy from there. A lot of mysterious plot
threads, most of which remain unexplained (which I’m fine with). Though there
is no filler throughout Madhouse and it was difficult to choose standouts,
there were a few stories I’d pick if a gun were pressed to my head: “Birdman”
by R.B Payne, “The Writing on the Wall” by Robin Spriggs (less a story, more a
brilliantly mad recital), “The Fraud” by Jeff Strand, and “Foodfight” by John
Skipp. Skipp’s is the most peculiar to me. I recently read this same story in
his collection The Art of Horrible People and couldn’t make any sense of it, I
suppose because it was removed from its true context. It probably shouldn’t
have been included in that collection, but reading it here, as it was meant to
be, well let’s just say I really loved it. It’s just plain bonkers (not that
the rest of Madhouse isn’t pretty bonkers, but you kind of have to expect a bit
of next-level craziness from Skipp). In addition to the awesome stories, there
is also a ton of additional killer art throughout by Alfrey.
I can’t recommend this book enough. In many ways, this level
of creativity and quality is what I expect of modern horror, so I offer a
hearty thank you to everyone involved in the project for delivering on the
promise quite a few other writers/editors/publishers do not.
