Dark bleatings my tribe! It’s Novella November here on Happy Goat Horror, which means I’m reviewing and talking about nothing but novellas all month. What better opportunity than to talk about 3 of my favourite Kit Power books (which are all under 200 pages each)?
If you don’t know who Kit Power is, you need to correct that immediately. He’s one of the most talented horror writers I know of – and if you’ve been following Happy Goat Horror for any length of time, you’ll already know how highly I regard him and his work. So let’s dig in!
Apocalyptic fiction is probably my favourite horror subgenre, so finding books in this category that deliver the dastardly goods is such a pleasure. A Song for the End is an absolute trip of a story. Humanity starts grinding to a halt because of a song… a song, of all things! Our protagonist, Bill, is one of the most relatable and sympathetic characters I’ve ever got to read. He’s an aspiring musician, but with the necessity of a day job (swap “musician” for “writer” and he’s me!). He finally gets the elusive BIG BREAK… but it’s not the dream he thought it would be. It’s a nightmare!
Synopsis:
Becoming an overnight sensation was supposed to be a good thing.
Not for Bill Cutter, supply teacher and weekend rock star. His band, The Fallen, have just released their latest tune on social media, and it’s blowing up.
So is the body count.
Now, Bill faces a frantic race against time to stop the spread of the song, before the horrific effects can no longer be contained.
Terrifying, bitterly funny, and tragic, A Song For The End is a breakneck, blood-soaked tale of truth, lies, consequences… and Rock N Roll.
Ah, GodBomb!…. what a book. If memory serves, before I read any of his fiction, I’d read plenty of Kit’s non-fiction. He’s a wonderful, powerful writer, whose articles have always struck a chord with me, so I was excited to finally get to read something his imagination conjured. GodBomb! was his first story of this length, and it didn’t disappoint. A guy walks into a church one day and threatens to kill everyone inside it unless God himself agrees to talk to him. That premise blew my mind. It’s both an introspective and reflective commentary on the societal struggles of the time, and issues that serve as catalysts for drastic personal choices. Plus, it ask those good age-old questions about the big man. That’s how I interpret it, anyway.
Synopsis:
Somebody wants answers.
North Devon, England. 1995. A born-again revival meeting in a public building. The usual mix of the faithful, the curious, and the desperate. And one other – an atheist suicide bomber. He’s angry. He wants answers. And if God doesn’t come and talk to him personally, he’s going to kill everyone in the building…
And now we’re at my favourite Kit Power book, The Finite. It’s also one of my favourite pieces of apocalyptic horror, and just in general, one of my most treasured books. I won’t spoil anything, but this story mixes end of the world survival anxieties with a touch of religious horror. If I had to compare it to something tonally, I might say that at points, it has a similar feel to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, only I personally much prefer Power’s writing to McCarthy’s. Yeah, I said that, and I mean it!
Synopsis:
The Finite started as a dream; an image, really, on the edge of waking. My daughter and I, joining a stream of people walking past our house. We were marching together, and I saw that many of those behind us were sick, and struggling, and then I looked to the horizon and saw the mushroom cloud. I remember a wave of perfect horror and despair washing over me; the sure and certain knowledge that our march was doomed, as were we.The image didn’t make it into the story, but the feeling did. King instructs us to write about what scares us. In The Finite, I wrote about the worst thing I can imagine; my own childhood nightmare, resurrected and visited on my kid.
I hope I’ve sufficiently swayed you to try at least one of these and begin your Kit Power journey, if you haven’t already. I’ll pop the sales links for each of the books below. A quick note – Sinister Horror Company, the (fabulous) publisher that released GodBomb! is closing its doors very soon, so if you want to grab Kit’s excellent debut then you need to get your skates on and snap up a copy before January 2024.
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment