A Fight for Survival Against Two Monsters: The Only Safe Place Left is The Dark is a LGBTQ spin on the zombie apocalypse story

 

The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark

Warren Wagner

Ghoulish Books, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-943720-86-6

Ebook, 100 ppg.

Buy link

 

 

Imagine a world where being HIV-positive is a blessing, not a curse. That’s how it is for Quinton and Billy, two HIV-positive gay men who fight zombies. In The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark by Warren Wagner, the world has gone to the dumps after a zombie plague sets in. Most people are either dead or zombies, while other people still alive are either monsters or survivors. That’s the world we have set up for us in this novella, and it’s a world where readers will constantly asking themselves: Who will live in the end?

 

The first chapter’s ending REALLY made me angry. I was so angry by what happened that I almost didn’t finish reading the rest of the book. But I did, only out of curiosity. But because the story was so good and awesome things happened, I kept reading!

 

This book is amazing. I loved it! I was especially surprised to learn that this was the author’s debut novella. It is so well-written! Yes, it’s a story of survival and how the world changed, and people changed, after the zombie apocalypse happened, but it’s also a story about love, friendship, loss, loyalty and compassion. That’s a lot to deliver coming from a horror novel, but those themes are indeed in the story, which really made it stand out.

 

Both Quinton and Billy have lost their partners, and I appreciated how we got to learn more about the man who Billy loved at some point in the story. Readers do get to know about Quinton’s lost partner, Frankie, through flashbacks and dreams in the story, but we also learn more about Billy’s late partner. This was a touching scene to read.

 

All of the things these two men go through are really frightening, but it brings them together. They survive so much, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to keep them apart. They got each other’s back. They have saved each other’s lives. It creates a bond for them which changes both their lives.

 

The title had me wondering if the “dark” represented something more than just darkness, as in, staying in the cover of darkness. If you stayed in the cover of darkness, the enemy cannot see you. In Quinton and Billy’s case, the enemy could be a batch of sorts: Zombies, homophobes, religious freaks out to “cleanse” the world (read: kill people) in God’s light, doing so by eliminating the weak and sinful.

 

Sure, that’s no way to live. Always in the dark. Always running, hiding and trying to survive. But that’s the world these two men are thrown into. As Quinton realizes at one point, “They lived for those they lost. Until they could live for themselves again.” (Pg. 83)

 

The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark is an unusual zombie apocalypse story of two gay men fighting for their lives and trying to survive a worst thing than being HIV-positive. Once I got past the horrors of the first chapter, it became a story that was hard for me to put down. It’s a story that brought new insights to my mind and made me think about just how far a person can go in trying to hold on to what kind of life they have left to live after losing everything and everyone in a chaotic world. Hopefully, some good can still be found in it.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Cringe-worthy poetry: Cringerotica offers poems on topics that make our skin crawl

 

Cringerotica

Soli

Wrong Publishing, 2024

Ebook, 26 ppg.

Preorder link

 

This book has the following content warnings:

Sexual content

Self harm

 

 

Despite the book’s title, not many of the poems in Cringerotica by Soli made me cringe. But they did make me squirm.

 

The poem "Desperate Pig begs shooting star for wings" (Page 3) was difficult to read, when the pig is being described as

 

"Pigs are smarter than dogs

–and more delicious."

 

and

 

"something clocks you as prey– your bellies are vessels of cured meat.

Your hams, waiting to be candied."

 

So many people do not see pigs as animals anymore; they see them as food, which is disturbing. I remember a time I was with a friend and we were checking out a pig we came across. I was admiring how cute the pig was while my friend said, "Now I'm hungry."

 

I do eat meat, but I love animals too much to see them as food. I would rather eat grains than animals. But this poem does more than show how meat-focused the human eye is on animals as food; it also shows the pig's plea for escape from a world in which he cannot grow old. In which he is born into a world where he will only be slaughtered.

 

I heard this cry for escape as I read these lines:

 

"do you know, before I was given a name I galloped through

these stars

unscathed. Before they picked out which of us was fit to eat I was a

borealis

with a name that could not be counted."

 

The poems in this short collection touch on other topics: Religion, capitalism, poverty. All topics overdone in literature, but when you read them here – in these words and in these poems – it is like seeing them in a new light. In this way, we come to think about them again and try to understand them again. And ask ourselves again, "How, and why, do these things suffocate us?"

 

At the same time, I also pick up on the author's rage at the rigors of society, as in here:

 

"They say I am too old to sit on Santa’s lap

But Santa’s just Dave with those damned eyes" (Page 10)

 

and

 

"They say I am too old to be Ms. America

But In my dream I steeze the judge

and put on what’s called

A chart topping performance" (Page 11) 

 

As well as rage against the bodies we are given when the author reveals that his most dire Christmas wish is this: "I ask him for breasts" and

 

"(I sigh) and think

of things God will not give me" Page 11)

 

The collection as a whole speaks volumes on such things, and more. Soli is a gifted poet unafraid to point out the fraud, the ridiculous, while also, at the same time, painting a world with a sure hand of certainty. Cringerotica is the kind of poetry collection that goes on long after reaching the end, with the author’s voice echoed in our footsteps as we traipse through a world we still struggle to piece back together.

 

 

Five stars

 

 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.