Highly recommended! Vile white supremacists flexing their muscles? He creates, unusually for the horror genre, incredibly sympathetic, real, involving, human characters. "You Go Where It Takes You," the opening story of the collection, sets the tone and, with its shocking ending, frames the moral of North American Lake Monsters. The following is the title story from Nathan Ballingrud’s recently published short story collection, North American Lake Monsters (Small Beer Press), reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. To scroll page, use up and down arrows. It seems that many lakes have monsters to go with them. One of the best collections I've read in years. It's a memory. T. Somewhere on Nathan Ballingrud's computer there must exist a template into which he plugs a handful of variables and the occasional clunky metaphor to create a story. Nathan Ballingrud's North American Lake Monsters is the author's debut short story collection and what a debut it is! I was thinking long and hard about whether to give this 2 or 3 stars. Some how it never quite takes central stage. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 October 2014, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2016, Excellent, disturbing and bleak horror stories, Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 August 2013. His novella, “The Visible Filth,” is being adapted to film. OMG HOW YUMMY IS ALL THIS EXTREME FLAVOR! In writing stories that are firmly entrenched in the horror genre, the temptation is always to dance around the human element for a bit before rushing headlong into the supernatural. Soon to be an original series, Monsterland, on Hulu. Approved third parties also use these tools in connection with our display of ads. You Go Where It Takes You Wild Acre S.S. The North Shore Monster is the name given to a purported cryptid which some believe lives in Utah's Great Salt Lake. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Prime members enjoy fast & free shipping, unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Prime Video and many more exclusive benefits. perhaps though the picker/packer at amazon warehouse could get their own copy rather than leaf through my copy? He has won two Shirley Jackson Awards and has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Awards. This one was special. Two recent, disastrous transformations of the American landscape reverberate through the book: Katrina and the financial crisis. Monsterland is an American drama anthology horror streaming television series created by Mary Laws, based upon the short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud.It consists of eight episodes and premiered on October 2, 2020, on Hulu. My novella "The Visible Filth" was recently made into a movie called Wounds, written and directed by Babak Anvari, starring Armie Hammer, Zazie Beetz, and Dakota Johnson. World Fantasy, British Fantasy, and Bram Stoker Award finalist. Yes, the book contains monsters, of all kinds. Nathan Ballingrud’s first collection gathers eight stories previously published in magazines and themed anthologies – easy to have missed – plus one original (“The Good Husband”). At times I felt like I was reading a new approach to horror fiction, and that's a very refreshing prickle to feel across my scalp. “Do you think it’s possible for something beautiful to come out of an awful thing?”, I try to read a short story every day, so I burn through a lot of collections each year. North American Lake Monsters Stories by Nathan Ballingrud. "Ballingrud’s language transforms known quantities into monsters again. Ballingrud’s NALM blew me away – from its dark beginnings with, “You Go Where It Takes You,” to, “The Good Husband,” the bizarre and crushing finale, NALM is filled with incredible stories. This one was special. North American Lake Monsters is not a physically demanding book – slim, spare and elegant in appearance, not heavy to the heft – but here appearances are deceptive. Please try again. The exceptional quality of the writing aside, what most impressed me about this collection was how the uncanny and the supernatural were used to augment stories that a chronicler of everyday tragedy and misfortune, like William Gay for example, often wrote about. THIS IS CHILI POWDER! This was not at all what I expected. Nathan Ballingrud's Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Vile white supremacists flexing their muscles? Two recent, disastrous transformations of the American landscape reverberate through the book: Katrina and the financial crisis. To the extent that I was quite heart-broken when a couple of the stories ended because I really wanted to spend more time with the people in them. Nathan Ballingrud's debut collection is just flat out great. Nathan Ballingrud's Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. North American Lake Monsters is Nathan Ballingrud's first collection of fiction, and hopefully the first of many more to come. The champion among American lake monsters, Champ's habitat is Lake Champlain on the New York/Vermont border. Refresh and try again. There's a fantastic idea at the heart of every story too. North American Lake Monsters contains the following nine stories: - You Go Where It Takes You - Wild Acre - S.S. - The Crevasse (co-written by Dale Bailey) - The Monsters of Heaven - Sunbleached - North American Lake Monsters - The Way Station - The Good Husband Here's a bit more information about these stories and my thoughts about them: THIS IS GARLIC! This short story collection is very good if you go in with properly set expectations. A suicidal wife whose husband will not let her die? Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell. If you like horror with twinges of the fantastical in the midst of mundane life, these are the stories for you. My favorites in the collection are “The Crevasse” (HAUNTING Lovecraftian tale), “Sunbleached” (one of my favorite vampire short stories), and “The Good Husband” (Very unsettling… I just finished the book, and this one will sit with me for a long time.) A bleak and uncompromising examination of 21st century masculinity through lenses of dark fantasy, noir, and horror. This is a brilliant collection of short stories. Creatures of Myth Series, Volume 1 (Books 1 - 4): Dark Paranormal Romance (Vampires... Obscurely Obvious: Revised and Expanded Edition: A Collection of Fantasy Short Stories, Super Humans: The New Super Humans, Book One, Under a Tell-Tale Sky: After the EMP (Disruption Trilogy Book 1), Push Back: After the EMP (Disruption Trilogy Book 2), The Complete Disruption Trilogy: Books 1 - 3, Promises To Keep: After the EMP (Disruption Trilogy Book 3), Of Snow and Roses: A Magical Modern Fairy Tale, The Weird Wild West: Tall Tales and Legends about the Frontier. I met Ballingrud very briefly at Readercon before he had to run off to the Shirley Jackson Awards ceremony (the novelette, “Wild Acre” included in NALM was nominated) and I wish I’d had more time (and already read the book!) [as awful as it was, that was the one "positive" ting about the mother in the first story - after pining over a better life she finally took action, even if it was the completely wrong kind. He was big, roped with muscles from working on offshore oil rigs, and tending to fat. There's a problem loading this menu at the moment. It's easy to get caught up in such obvious Big H Horror signposts, as those fantastical elements are what drew most of us to the genre to begin with. At dusk or evening of the early summer of 1877, J.H. His stories do not always reassure, though there are brief epiphanies and some moments of redemption. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 August 2014. . This is my firs encounter with reading Mr. Ballingud's work. Transformation carries a shocking cost. Because it is a truly impressive book, one to which attention should be paid. Hollywood producers, directors, and actors are continuing their obsession... Nathan Ballingrud's Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. North American Lake Monsters is not a physically demanding book – slim, spare and elegant in appearance, not heavy to the heft – but here appearances are deceptive. The moral: people will out-monster monsters every time. North American Lake Monsters is a collection of short horror stories, collected from author Nathan Ballingrud’s various previously published works.. I bought this book after hearing him read a (disturbing, terrifying) excerpt of one of them a few years back but never went back to it. to discuss some of the. Shop books, stationery, devices and other learning essentials. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published The slideshow and carousels can be controlled using tab, left, and right arrow keys. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2015. Bought this off the Google Play store on a whim after first seeing it on a Book Riot article. North American Lake Monsters contains the following nine stories: - You Go Where It Takes You - Wild Acre - S.S. - The Crevasse (co-written by Dale Bailey) - The Monsters of Heaven - Sunbleached - North American Lake Monsters - The Way Station - The Good Husband Here's a bit more information about these stories and my thoughts about them: The horror is that they do not resolve. I really looked forward to picking it up each morning because I never knew what to expect. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Totally unique. Monsterland is a 2020 horror anthology series streaming on Hulu.It is based on the short horror stories (sometimes loosely) of Nathan Ballingrud's 2013 book North American Lake Monsters: Stories.The show was created by Mary Laws (writer of The Neon Demon) and each episode takes place and is named after a different city.. The human interest is always at the centre of the story. © 1996-2021, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Transformation carries a shocking cost. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. The stories deal with what I suppose you might call blue-collar America. Go west (young man) and you may find yourself seeking out the Hodag or the Bear Lake Monster, or further on and you may find yourself standing over fresh tracks of perhaps the most famous of them all, Bigfoot! A great horror story doesn't simply stay with you, it haunts you, and Nathan Ballingrud's fiction does just that. We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, to provide our services, understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. The new horror anthology series from Hulu is a more cerebral take on the monsters within us. Every time I pick up North American Lake Monsters, I want to take copious notes on how Ballingrud assembles each story. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Welcome back. I highly recommend it and I hope it gets a wide readership. I met Ballingrud very briefly at Readercon before he had to run off to the Shirley Jackson Awards ceremony (the novelette, “Wild Acre” included in NALM was nominated) and I wish I’d had more time (and already read the book!) July 16th 2013 In the early days, these fantasies were defined by spectacular violence. In the Yakutia region of eastern Siberia, in Russia, is the remote volcanic lake called Lake Khaiyr. An Arctic expedition gone horribly wrong? To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. I'm the author of North American Lake Monsters: stories, coming from Small Beer Press in July 2013. Two recent, disastrous transformations of the American landscape reverberate through the book: Katrina and the financial crisis. Trade paperback. Ordinary people in austere, post-Credit-Crunch times. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. The stories carry (so lightly) a weight of hinterland and incident, of emotional power and implication, seemingly to excess for their modest size. He would find the man who stole him and open his head with a claw hammer. Choose from over 13,000 locations across the UK, Prime members get unlimited deliveries at no additional cost, Dispatch to this address when you check out, Previous page of related Sponsored Products. He lives in Asheville, NC. I finally did and was not disappointed. I'm currently at work on my first novel and several more short stories. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. North American Lake Monsters is a collection of nine short stories by Nathan Ballingrud. Until finally you run out of choices and you are whoever you are.”, “A ghost is something that fills a hole inside you, where you lost something. There's nothing eerie, creepy or frightening here. One of the best collections I have read in recent years. “She’s like a thousand different people right now, all waiting to be, and every time she makes a choice, one of those people goes away forever. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. by Small Beer Press. Unable to add item to List. Elsewhere on the site, we have an exclusive interview with Ballingrud, which we hope you all read in addition to this story. "You Go Where It Takes You," the opening story of the collection, sets the tone and, with its shocking ending, frames the moral of North American Lake Monsters. "For a long time, Brian imagined reunions with his son. There is reportedly a "Bessie" in Lake Erie in North America and "Tessie" in Lake Tahoe, a "Bownessie" in England and "Kussie" in Japan. (And, incidentally, probably THE BEST DAMNED VAMPIRE STORY I'VE EVER READ!) To see what your friends thought of this book, They end. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible. North American Lake Monsters contains the following nine stories: - You Go Where It Takes You - Wild Acre - S.S. - The Crevasse (co-written by Dale Bailey) - The Monsters of Heaven - Sunbleached - North American Lake Monsters - The Way Station - The Good Husband Here's a bit more information about these stories and my thoughts about them: Lake Area Country Continent Name(s) Description First–last reported sightings Notes Alkali Lake Nebraska USA North America: Alkali Lake Monster: 40-foot-long alligator-like creature with rough, grayish-brown skin and a horn-like appendage located between its eyes and nostrils. Buy North American Lake Monsters: Stories Unabridged by Ballingrud, Nathan, Young, Travis (ISBN: 9781978645332) from Amazon's Book Store. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. I live with my daughter in Asheville, NC. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the ghost ends and real life begins.”, Bram Stoker Award Nominee for Best Fiction Collection (2013), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Collection (2014), Shirley Jackson Award for Single-Author Collection (2013). I'm Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell, and North American Lake Monsters. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Transformation carries a shocking cost. Welcome to Monsterland Wiki, Hulu's horror anthology series created by Mary Laws. The stories take us to vastly different scenarios, in which everyday people deal with differing supernatural phenomena. The book's first story, "You Go Where It Takes You" features a waitress who's confronted with a man on the run with a trunk full of human skin. They end. But that sort of "too much of a good thing" is what can often ruin a great story, much like too much sugar can ruin a coffee, too much salt can render a stew inedible. . Try again. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 October 2013. Take a look at the short story “The Monsters of Heaven” by Nathan Ballingrud, from his upcoming collection North American Lake Monsters. It's probably some thing like this: [insert sad sack human here] and possibly [a second slightly less sad sack human here], beset by [mundane tragedy], who suddenly has an encounter with [insert unexplained supernatural phenomenon here], which is the catalyst for either [a cathartic experience] or [further descent into darkness]. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible. I'm aware I'm in the absolute minority since most reviewers are absolutely in love with this short story collection. Nathan Ballingrud (born December 31, 1970) is an American writer of horror and dark fantasy fiction. And I think that cover and the title also did me in. North American Lake Monsters Stories ... You Go Where It Takes You He did not look like a man who would change her life. The author with the Norwegian-sounding name has written stories that will stay with me for many nightmares to come. We’d love your help. Transformation carries a shocking cost. The Crevasse The Monsters of Heaven Sunbleached North American Lake Monsters The Way Station The Good Husband Acknowledgments Publication History About the Author North American Lake Monsters Stories Nathan Ballingrud Glancing at the homo sapiens just long enough to fulfill some literary obligation before full-on ogling the monsters. A fugitive vampire being harbored by a vengeful teen? . I don’t think I can praise this collection of stories enough. There was perhaps half of two stories that were good in this collection, but the extreme mediocrity of the rest just annoyed me so much I can't give it any more than one star. This is a fantastic collection of weird horror fiction short stories. In 1964 a team of scientists from Moscow University led by a Dr. Nikolai Gladkikh were here at this barren, windswept rocky place to catalogue the native flora and fauna. A good horror story stays with you long after reading it. Something went wrong. Transformation carries a shocking cost. I was really impressed with this collection. North American Lake Monsters is Nathan Ballingrud's first collection of fiction, and hopefully the first of many more to come. A fugitive vampire being harbored by a vengeful teen? Sorry, there was a problem saving your cookie preferences. I really looked forward to picking it up each morning because I never knew what to expect. They reflect the pain that we as people inflict on ourselves and at times on those around us. Beautifully crafted fiction, stories that'll really affect you and keep you thinking long after you've finished the book. It's really not easy to describe these stories other than amazingly well written and compulsive reading. Just "weird" stories that miss the mark. But I didn't know what to expect, either, so I kinda winged it until I got the main feels down. Two recent, disastrous transformations of the American landscape reverberate through the book: Katrina and the financial crisis. At 73%, I'm giving up. If you like Robert Aickman, Joel Lane or M. John Harrison, you'll love this. Would it be a tale about the aftermath of a werewolf attack? “You Go Where It Takes You,” the opening story of the collection, sets the tone and, with its shocking ending, frames the moral of North American Lake Monsters. The horror/weird element in the stories, whether it's a vampire, lake-monster, or other type of monster is often quite small or at the periphery. There is a big hype about the stories of this writer, but for me, this volume wasn`t such a great venture. Great book of short stories, well written and with very human believable characters in strange situations, very enjoyable. For this reason I think he's going to be a fantastic novel writer. As with many monsters, the … I try to read a short story every day, so I burn through a lot of collections each year. Because it is a truly impressive book, one to which attention should be paid. His novella, The Visible Filth, was adapted into a feature film titled Wounds by Babak Anvari. Start by marking “North American Lake Monsters” as Want to Read: Error rating book. The production values are excellent too, the the hardcover is a lovely edition. The most original and unsettling collection of short stories I have ever read. ... North American Lake Monsters: Stories: 2013-07-16: Nathan Ballingrud: Small Beer Press: 978-1-61873-060-2: $16.00: 205 tp? 0 Ratings 0 Want to read; 0 Currently reading; 0 Have read; This edition was published in 2013 by Small Beer Press Written in English — 300 pages This edition doesn't have a description yet. It's one of the best horror short story collections published during the last couple of years. Is it just me or does it seem like none of these stories have actual endings? Ready to see some of your favorite stories come to life? "You Go Where It Takes You," the opening story of the collection, sets the tone and, with its shocking ending, frames the moral of North American Lake Monsters. The horror is that they do not resolve. Ballingrud is an important figure in North American letters. But that sort of "too much of a good thing" is wh. An Arcti. His stories do not always reassure, though there are brief epiphanies and some moments of redemption.