Creepy Sheen

 “Seems forever ago now, as if I’m looking back on a different person. I was a sleepwalker. Eating junk, watching junk, surrounded by junk people, just like me. That night woke me up.”

– Rebecca Gransden, Night Drive Drifter in a Bad Dream

🕹️I received an e-Book of this story in exchange for a fair review!🕹️

A collection of ten weird-horror stories, Rebecca Gransden’s Creepy Sheen takes tales of the abstract and the unusual and then presents them through a filter of neon-drenched eighties glitz. I feel it’s important for me to also include the book’s own description of itself, in order to fully understand the author’s approach to the anthology as a whole:

‘For decades, Humankind sent transmissions around the globe. In addition to reaching every corner of the planet, the signals travelled beyond, into the dark void of space. All of broadcast history made its way gracefully through the stars, racing into the unknown—until the mid 1980s, when nuclear mushroom clouds plumed in the skies of Earth’s Third World War.’

As that brief synopsis suggests, this anthology is written with an alien, otherworldly bent, as though each story is a surviving transmission from a “decimated-by-nuclear-armageddon-in-the-eighties” version of our reality. The stories contained within often feel like they fall somewhere between the broader categorisation of speculative fiction, and more specifically the so-called sub-genre of “quiet horror”. Many are quite hard to define by any terms, and all are simmering with an uncomfortable atmosphere of dread that makes for a compelling read.

Gransden is clearly a skilled author and her enviable way with words really does shine throughout the book – the stories are highly polished and well-written, from the first to the last. At a short 99 pages this book could easily be devoured in one sitting, but I feel given the layered nature of the stories, they’re better read individually, and mulled over for a while afterwards. I saw another reviewer compare this to a concept album, and feel that’s an extremely apt description – it feels as much an exercise in artistic experimentation as it does a collection of spooky narratives.

Creepy Sheen very much exists at the intersection between dreams, nightmares, and an unfiltered reality – and it’s in the melding of these crossroads with the callous, alien perspective they are being presented through that the tension is created. A trio of highlights for me were Night Drive Drifter in a Bad Dream (great story titles throughout the book, by the way), about a simple delivery job gone very awry, Breakdown on a Synthesizer, a highly original story concerning call-ins during a musical event, and finally Liquid Crystal, about a bizarre and nightmarish infomercial from hell.

I did sometimes feel that the stories were somewhat underdeveloped or open-ended for my own liking, and I do think that the book overall is likely going to be something of an acquired taste – though I suppose much the same could be said for any creative endeavour. It didn’t always click for me, but nonetheless I found it engaging and fascinating, with something of a unique, avant-garde charm. This artistic approach to storytelling can sometimes be a bit polarising, but on that same note, I’m sure there are plenty of folks for whom this will be 100% their breed of creepiness. Taking everything into consideration, I for one enjoyed it, and would be curious to read more from this author at some point.

VERDICT: Creepy Sheen toes the line between the quietly uncanny and the abstract, and as such, might not be everyone’s cup of tea. For fans of that style of horror though, this collection is a sterling example of it: often creepy, sometimes weird, and oozing a cool eighties vibe. It takes natural human nostalgia and scrutinises it via a foreign, extraterrestrial viewpoint, creating a genuinely unnerving ambiance in the process.

It’s a strong ⭐⭐⭐⭐/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from this reviewer. I also want to say a humongous thank you to Rebecca Gransden for providing a copy and giving me the chance to read and review it.