Horror is a difficult genre to bring off successfully in creating the proper level of suspense and apprehension. The short story is a challenging format, requiring a writer to compress ideas and characters while not damaging either. Combining the two presents a writer with significant hurdles. Man-Made Monsters, a collection of horror short stories by "Mad Marv," doesn't quite clear them.
Marv's thesis is fairly straightforward. To the extent monsters exist in the modern world, they are going to be created by man. They are going to be the result of science, technology or the government acting in an unchecked fashion. Moreover, rather than becoming part of legend or folklore, those involved will do everything they can to keep word or knowledge of the projects from the public.
Marv's ideas may be right. The execution is somewhat lacking, though, as the stories tend to come off as hit and run horror.
One of the primary problems is there are just too many ideas in several of the stories and Marv doesn't seem able to settle on just one until the very end.
For example, "Overtime," which opens the book, is about John, an investigative reporter who somehow wakes up while on a table in a funeral home being prepared for embalming. Although John truly is dead, his essence keeps his decomposing body going long enough for him to set out in search of his murderer. But Mad Marv tries to do too many things in too few pages. As a result, John's quest has him lurching from place to place and idea to idea (government conspiracy, saving a person he hurt with his last story, finding out if his wife truly loved him) before we find out whether he ultimately solves the mystery. At times, the story invokes images almost directly out of a Frankenstein movie.
A similar problem exists with "Sins of the Mother." It is the story of Lorraine Adams, an ex-con whose time in a mental institution makes her wonder if the paranoia and voices she hears are mental illness returning. The story mixes such diverse themes as abortion and mind control while Lorraine, too, goes from place to place fearing or chasing one character after another. Again, we are provided with a resolution indicating that the nefarious origin of her troubles will never come to light.
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