Shock Totem 8.5: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted - Valentine's Day 2014

Love is in the air. Can you feel it? The most wonderful and diabolical emotion of them all, and we're going to celebrate it. Ostensibly as a Valentine's Day issue, but really...it's all about love.

And horror, of course.

In this special edition of Shock Totem you will find "Clocks," a beautifully tragic tale told by master storyteller Darrell Schweitzer. "Silence," by Robert J. Duperre, is a gut-wrenching tale of love, war, and death. You won't soon forget this one. In "Broken Beneath the Paperweight of Your Ghosts," Damien Walters Grintalis tells of a man and his tattered heart. Catherine Grant's "Sauce" teaches us that sometimes things left behind are best left alone. Tim Waggoner examines the perfect lover in "The Man of Her Dreams." "Hearts of Women, Hearts of Men," by Zachary C. Parker, follows a battered woman struggling to free herself from an abusive relationship while a serial killer is on the loose. In total, nine tales await you...

Like our previous holiday issue (Christmas 2011), the fiction is paired with nonfiction, this time by Violet LeVoit, Jassen Bailey, Kristi Petersen Schoonover, C.W. LaSart, Bracken MacLeod, John Dixon, Brian Hodge, and more. True tales of first loves, failed relationships, misfortune, death, sex, and...meatloaf.

Love has its dark side, folks, and fittingly this issue has very sharp teeth.

Come see why Shock Totem is billed as "...one of the strongest horror fiction magazines on the market today" (Hellnotes).