Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

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Some horror walks you down a dark corridor, where there’s whispers and laughter, sobs and screams. Other horror starts down at the end of that corridor, where there’s a door that opens on to you don’t know what. Read this, and then decide where Eric LaRocca has left you. Not that it matters. There’s no way out.”– Stephen Graham Jones, author of The Only Good Indians and My Heart is a Chainsaw Domestic Abuse: Zoe initially sets herself up as a Dominatrix, promising to take care of Agnes as long as the latter remains her slave. However, as the story unfolds her actions appear closer to this trope. Not quite played straight, as by the end Agnes and Zoe never meet each other in real life.

So we should stop focusing on creating the macroeconomic conditions that will stimulate growth and focus instead on providing support to low-income households providing access to work for all people, including people who have low levels of qualification and creating a much more inclusive economy rather than one that creates wealth for the elites and particularly for the shareholders of the largest corporations”. The Enchantment’ follows James and Olive who decide to act as live-in caretakers of a hotel during its off season (another example of LaRocca wearing their horror influences on their sleeve) after the suicide of their teenage son. While ‘The Enchantment’ doesn’t shine in the way that the previous story does, the way that LaRocca explores Judeo-Christian faith is inspired. The story takes place in a world where the concept of an afterlife has very recently been scientifically disproved. In the wake of this new atheistic realism, the characters discuss worldwide mass suicides as just another news story, and Olive’s obsessive faith becomes irrational and pitiful. It’s a wonderful setting, and most of the story is a well-written character study detailing the comfort of irrational beliefs. Ultimately, however, ‘The Enchantment’ loses its grip on the humanism that makes the first chunk of this book so special. If Things have Gotten Worse was too dark for you, You've Lost a Lot of Blood is a reasonable middle ground. Its dark but not disgusting, and much more psychological...with a hint of body horror. It doesn't inspire the same level of dread, rather, it focuses on mostly being very weird. The A plot structures itself like a dark academia (These Violent Delights) with the characters being a bit pretentious. The B plot gives off David Lynch vibes. They are pretty different, but work together to tell a complete story.

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That wind, here, could more accurately be called “the algorithm”—but before we get there, let’s talk about that hard-to-forget cover. It’s a painting by Kim Jakobsson called Passing Oxygen, which Richard and LaRocca agreed “was perfect.” Squarely in both the crime and body horror traditions, Mutant Circuit reads like Elmore Leonard and David Cronenberg meeting at 3 AM in a run-down strip mall parking lot, and Mark Jaskowski is the conspirator who brought them there. You are never entirely sure where Eric LaRocca is taking you, and what impact each story will have as an impact on your sleeping hours will change from reader to reader, and yet, you are quite happy to let him take you by the hand, lead you down a very dark alley and when he tells you to open your eyes, will you? The second is about Tamsen and her brother Presley who move to a big dark mansion to complete a half-made game and some weird and dark stuff starts occurring. (Can't say much)

What we have there are three thematically connected but otherwise distinct horror stories, which are queer in the sense that some of the involved characters are queer, rather than the horror is itself queer. I’m drawing that distinction somewhat cautiously because I don’t want to make sweeping statements about how queerness should (or does) manifest in modern horror. But I’m still so used to queerness being a direct source of horror to the mainstream that the kind of queer horror I’m most comfortable with is as a reader involves queer characters but isn’t directly queer focused in its themes.Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke basically carries the star rating for this short stories collection, which remains powerful (and grotesque) upon re-read. The remainder is inoffensive at best, forgettable at worst — if you're expecting a consistent caliber as THGWSWLS, you may find the overall experience a slight letdown . One common realisation is that we need to stop thinking that economic growth will lift all boats,” he said. “We’ve seen in most OECD countries that growth of GDP has been going hand in hand with increasing inequalities and a failure to reduce levels of both relative and absolute poverty. Last year, with Richard at the helm, Weirdpunk started publishing horror novellas. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, released this June, was the indie publisher’s seventh short and spooky release. Bleak, clever, edgy, and vicious. Eric LaRocca draws his readers in for something they will never expect and never forget.” -Sadie Hartmann, ‘Mother Horror’ You'll Find It's Like That All Over is simply way too short to let its intention breathe, resulting in the whole thing feeling under-baked and oversimplified — I get its message, but the execution is very bare-bone.

This collection also includes two other short stories: THE ENCHANTMENT and YOU’LL FIND IT’S LIKE THAT ALL OVER. While I didn’t love the former (3⭐️), I did really enjoy the latter (5⭐️) and thought it was another extremely effective short story. Verna must battle both man and monster to protect her family and her newfound love for Audrey, a refugee from the mainland.

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This is a psychological horror story. Nothing presented is supernatural, the fear is from our minds and how people can be manipulated. This is a story of a manipulator and how things can go when manipulating someone with the wrong state of mind. Beyond that you'll have to read for yourself. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a 2021 queer horror novella by Eric LaRocca. Originally published on its own, it was later reprinted with two additional stories as Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes. The author’s strong prose does an impressive job anchoring everything on solid ground even as the stories spiral into surrealist grotesquerie. LaRocca is a writer to watch.”– Publishers Weekly Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished-the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood. For those unfamiliar, the Weirdpunk Sub Club is essentially a subscription service for a year’s slate of books. For 2023, we will be releasing 5. When each book comes out, it will be sent to you without you having to do any additional work. You also get the bonus of knowing you helped us fund an entire year of releases.

The gory scenes are visceral and are the best parts of the book, in my opinion. But the rest of it was just too ridiculous and shallow to take seriously. A set of three short works, all falling into that bleak, almost nihilistic type of horror. This style is hit or miss for me, sometimes it all just works like gangbusters and sometimes I feel like it's piling on for piling on's sake. These all are in the middle for me, a few recurring themes that are nice since the three stories are very very different otherwise. We’ll have cover reveals for Eric LaRocca’s disturbing Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Maria Abrams’ haunting She Who Rules the Dead over the next couple of weeks, too!I liked the Oedipus element, the implication that Agnes will stab her eyes out after her girlfriend leaves her like her mother did. However, it was both underutilised and over-explained. In the far-distant post-apocalypse of rural America, an embattled company of chainsaw-wielding hillbillies are set forth by Her Majesty of the Ozarks on a quest for precious methamphetamine.