Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Dark City: A Novella Collection
    Unavailable
    Dark City: A Novella Collection
    Unavailable
    Dark City: A Novella Collection
    Ebook235 pages3 hours

    Dark City: A Novella Collection

    By Brian Hodge and Gerard Houarner

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Forty-two floors of premium Manhattan real estate, The Krammer Building is exclusive, luxurious...and surprisingly empty. Wendy’s brother offers her an island of escape in the building to get her back on her feet and bury her abusive past.
    But while she’s ready to bury that past, a missing woman’s past doesn’t want to be forgotten. Wendy finds a mysterious dream journal stashed away on a bookshelf and she becomes obsessed with finding its author, even if it means daring to step into another dimension where evolution has gone in a very different direction. When Wendy finds herself snowed in and restless, she begins the hunt through the Krammer’s floors in search of the woman who disappeared in its negative spaces and worlds suddenly collide and Wendy finds being fearless doesn’t matter nearly as much as turning fierce.

    -----

    When the world as she knew it came to an end and the people she loves changed into husks—living ghosts of what they once were—sometimes the easiest thing to do is try and continue life’s monotonous routine in a desperate grab for normalcy. That’s what Isabella is trying to do. But as she spots plumes of smoke rise from distant fires and sees these living ghosts haunting the streets, mindlessly going through their lives like they always have, she heads home and wonders just what will be coming home to her...and if his eyes will look different this time.

    -----

    In the world that survived after The Turning, bureaucracy thrives. And for Marican, it’s all he has, and the Bureau of Investigations is his life. One day he’s given a folder, and an assignment...find this missing person. He sets out to find Oria, one of the multitude of orphans who lived after The Turning took everything. He’s been told she can help.
    Marican treasures his bland job and his boring routine in this new grey world of devastation and dust. But he must decide if he wants change or stability as Oria inserts herself into his life bringing color and life to his otherwise bleak existence. Will he accept her or does her presence dredge up too many memories of the wonderful times before happiness died...before The Turning.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNecro Publications
    Release dateAug 7, 2015
    ISBN9781939065810
    Unavailable
    Dark City: A Novella Collection
    Author

    Brian Hodge

    Brian Hodge is the author of eight novels, including Wild Horses and Dark Advent, and three story collections, as well as numerous short stories in various publications and anthologies. He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and for the World Fantasy Award.

    Read more from Brian Hodge

    Related to Dark City

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Paul Tremblay

      Jun 17, 2020

      IT’S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY BIGGEST FEARS that I would live to see the end of everything,” says Paul Tremblay, speaking to SFX from his Massachusetts home in the middle of lockdown. It’s a singularly peculiar time, and a peculiar interview for him to

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Paul Tremblay

      Dec 3, 2020

      For the first time in weeks, I was swept along into that trance, that magic inner space where stories live. The post A Year in Reading: Paul Tremblay appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Stoker Winners

      Jul 1, 2021

      The Horror Writers Association has announced the winners of the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards. The winners were: Superior Achievement in a Novel: The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones; First Novel, The Fourth Whore, EV Knight; Young Adult Novel, Clow

      1 min read

    • Article

      Auto Eroticism

      Nov 13, 2020

      Auto Eroticism
      4 min read

    • Article

      Monster

      Dec 1, 2022

      Monster
      7 min read

    • Article

      Speaking Of Horror

      Sep 12, 2020

      Speaking Of Horror
      14 min read

    • Article

      Leading Lights Of Horror

      Jun 4, 2020

      The Horror Writers Association (HWA) 2019 Bram Stoker Awards for ‘superior achievements’ in the genre have been awarded as follows: Superior Achievement in a Novel, Coyote Rage, Owl Goingback; First Novel, The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, Sarah Read; Young

      1 min read

    • Article

      WIL WHEATON on Stand By Me

      Nov 18, 2022

      WIL WHEATON on Stand By Me
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Quiet Boy

      Jan 28, 2019

      The Quiet Boy
      29 min read

    • Article

      Stories To Make Them Shake

      Oct 7, 2021

      Scary Diary Press publishes titles of dark sci-fi/spec-fic/bizarro and horror fiction focused ‘on world issues that need a-fixing’. Currently they want short story submissions, 2,000-5,000 words, for an anthology (working title Bloody Rock) which ‘co

      1 min read

    • Article

      Garden Magic

      Sep 15, 2019

      I took a step further to meet Horace for health, for love, for a leg up. And at Horace’s everything was gray there with some white accents—and the walls were gray, not paint. They were hung with fabric and he had a gray carpet on the floor. Once, bef

      2 min read

    • Article

      Us And Them: The Authorised Story Of Hipgnosis

      Feb 3, 2023

      Mark Blake NINE EIGHT BOOKS Rifle through any reasonable-sized album collection the chances are you’ll find at least one cover created by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, and later in their story, Peter Christopherson. They were collectively

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Man Of Your Dreams

      Nov 6, 2019

      The Man Of Your Dreams
      6 min read

    • Article

      Gothic Revival

      Oct 1, 2020

      Gothic Revival
      9 min read

    Reviews for Dark City

    3.5/5

    6 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      ** I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**

      Overall I liked this book. I liked some of the stories better than others, as is expected, I don't want to give anything away or sway someone to which ones I liked the best, so I won't list them. Still, this probably isn't the genre for me. I'm still glad I got to read it. 3 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of 3 dark novellas, one by Brian Hodge, the remaining two by Gerard Houarner. I requested an ARC of this volume from Brian Hodge. As a fan of his work, I had to have it! Up until I started reading this, I was not familiar with Gerard Houarner at all. All of these stories were very strange, each in their own way.

      First up: In the Negative Spaces by Brian Hodge. This was a weird tale about a young woman, Wendy, fleeing to her brother's hoity toity apartment in NYC. What she is fleeing becomes clear later, but why her NYC is not quite the NYC we know and love-is never fully explained, which is fine by me. Anyway, Wendy discovers a strange dream diary in the apartment and realizes it belonged to an ex-girlfriend of her brother's; a woman who just up and disappeared. What follows is a strange adventure with Wendy and the doorman of the building....and then it morphed into something completely different. I loved it! A line from the third story "The Fear Puppet" summed it up perfectly. "A nightmare spilling into the waking world. " This seemed to be a recurring theme in this collection.

      The second novella, Burning Bright in the Invisible Night , was just plain weird. We are dropped into the home of Isabella and Hugh, and things are very wrong with the world.They both try to continue life as normally as possible, with both of them going to work. However, their workplaces are not the same as they used to be and probably never will be again. As the story continues, all kinds of strange happenings occur until the reader begins to get a more clear idea about what is going on. My conclusion was that this was the best zombie novella, (with NO zombies), that I've ever read! I was gratified to learn, through the author's note at the end, that my take was correct. However-I think that this story could work on different levels also-depending on how the reader chooses to see things. I think that either way, this story would be viewed as a successful and entertaining one.

      The third novella confused me quite a bit. The Fear Puppet was a messed up story. I had trouble trying to figure out what the hell was going on. My enjoyment of the tale began when I gave up trying to figure it out and just let it happen. I enjoy ambiguous stories, or tales where everything is not explained, (in most cases, I LOVE them). In this case I do wish a few more of the holes were filled in. As it stands, I did like this story and I did see some correlations in there between the real world and the world in the story. For instance, the next to the last line: "He'd never voted for change, always for security." This put me in mind of the whole Patriot Act thing that has been going on in the US for quite a while now. Whether that was the intent of the sentence, I don't know, but that's what it brought to mind for me. (I considered including a quote about freedom, security and fear, due to the title of this story, but decided against it, because again-this might just be me.) This story is thought provoking and while not as straightforward as the other two novellas here, still worth a read, in my opinion.

      Overall, I enjoyed this collection as I was all but certain that I would. I was surprised to read that Gerard Houarner has had over 280 stories published over the last 40 years. How has he escaped my attention? I will try to track down more of his work in the future. Regarding Mr. Hodge-he already has my attention and it's high time you gave him some of yours, don't you think?

      This book is due out on August 7th and I recommend it!

      *A free e-ARC was provided to me in exchange for an honest review. This is it.*

      *Note: A moment ago I was looking at this book and my review did not appear anywhere! I brought it back over here from Char's Horror Corner and now I have duplicates! WTH Goodreads?*
    • 4/5
      Review copyDark City is a collection of three novellas with varying takes on the apocalypse and the times following such a catastrophic event. The book features one longer piece from Brian Hodge and a couple of smaller novellas by Gerard Houarner.~"In the Negative Spaces" by Brian HodgeWendy Weil comes to stay at her brother's apartment in NYC. Barrett, at the front desk, welcomes her and in a way becomes her confidant in the days that follow. While living in her brother's apartment, Wendy discovers the dream journal of her brother's ex who one day just disappeared. What she finds while trying to solve this mystery makes for a very interesting story. Taking nothing away from Mr. Houarner, this was my favorite of the three stories in the collection. In promoting this work on his website Brian says the following. "And somewhere in there, caramel-and-sea-salt brownies are served. Come for the brownies, stay for the blizzard and interdimensional chaos." Nice.~"Burning Bright In the Invisible Light" by Gerard Houarner. I loved the opening line in this story, "It came to IsaBella that evening, after her husband came home, that his eyes had changed color." makes me want to know what that was all about.There actually seem to be some zombies in this story, but they are definitely way in the background. This is really a story about trying to hold onto one's personal reality while everything around you is becoming more and more unreal.~"The Fear Puppet" by Gerard Houarner The apocalyptic event in this story was known as The Turning. We never really learn what that meant or what the cause was, but it really didn't matter. I liked this story better than Gerard's other entry.Marican works for the Ministry. While investigating the circumstances surrounding a missing man, he comes to question a teenage orphan girl named Oria and here things get rather interesting. In Gerard's Afterword for this tale he describes it as "Kafka meets Lovecraft. Welcome to the after party for the Apocalypse."~Together, the three stories that make up Dark City are explorations of how life goes on in spite of dire circumstances.Available in hardcover and trade paperback from Necro Publications and as an e-book from the usual online retailers.Recommended.