Bonespin Slipspace

by Leo X. Robertson, Thuy Vi Pham (Illustrator)

In Bonespin Slipspace, all is not what it seems. Rudy and Tammy may have made the biggest mistake of their lives by accepting an invitation to Blackburn's manor to party with the depraved Manorites. Head-games, ghoulish hallucinations, and disturbing memories lurk around every corner of the psychic and physical labyrinth that is The Manor Experience. Rudy and Tammy may never get out alive, but, in Blackburn's world, even death may no longer offer the familiar escape. Give Rimbaud an x-ray machine. Tie up and gag Baudelaire. Introduce Poe to bondage. Do you dare enter the realm of Bonespin Slipspace?

Genres: Horror

70 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2016

About the author

"I have never in my life been exposed to a more fascinatingly bizarre story--and I've been exposed to some pretty damn fascinating and bizarre stories in my day! Buy this damn book! Now!" - Michael Alig, on my novella, Bonespin Slipspace (Psychedelic Horror Press, 2016)

One thing I know I can't write is a witty bio of myself- so if you want to know anything, just ask :)

In the meantime, here are some stories I got published that you might like:

Stabbing in a Lighter Darkness
The Hundred-Year Storm
The Audition Altar

Find me on Twitter: @Leoxwrite

Follow me for my author blog where I write about writing, reading and general observations- or you can find this content on my Tumblr
here.

I also recently started a podcast, Losing the Plot, which you can listen to here. And if you're a reader, writer, or fancy a chat about books, do get in touch with me at losingtheplotpodcast [at] gmail [dot] com!

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written with the precision of a surgeon in an operating theatre, this novella takes us on a kaleidoscope journey through horror, erotica and crystal clear visions of nightmare and beauty.  The overall image is stunning.

[Jay Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

An utter delight. The first of Leo X. Robertson's works that I have had the pleasure of reading. Imagine William Burroughs in his pomp, or James Havoc with wit, imagination, and talent. Depraved vignettes lovingly described. Great fun altogether.

[Danger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leo X. Robertson is one sick puppy. And I do mean that as a compliment.

This book was harrowing. An acid-laced bullet to the fucking brain. At turns uncomfortable and cathartic, Robertson’s Bonespin Slipspace finds a way to make psychosexual torture seem almost commonplace.

What we have here is a story about three hipsters (with a somewhat complicated and murky history) who are reunited at a party at a place called Blackburn Manor, which is essentially the Playboy Mansion from Hell. As the constructs of reality slip away, and the subconscious (and often repressed) landscapes of dark humanity take it’s place, our three protagonists are forced into places stranger than they (or YOU) have ever known.

It gets pretty graphic. Not to a “lose-your-lunch” degree, but Robertson is not shying away or playing coy when it comes time to embracing a disturbing scene. So yeah, know that if you’re buying this ticket, you’ll be taking the ride. Psychedelic Horror Press truly lives up to its name with this title.

Fun for the whole family, if you’re the Manson Family.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey!

So Bonespin is now available on Amazon! Will those folk who were kind enough to read and review it consider transferring their review to Amazon also? Would be a big help! Thanks!

Those of you who haven't read it yet, well, you're in for a treat, and now that we've migrated from Storenvy to Amazon, you can order as many copies as you like ;)

Here’s some new chat about this book for those who’ve read it or are interested in what the hell it’s about—spoilered for those whose own interpretations are sensitive, but I like to think mine won’t influence yours and also that you can reveal the entire plot of the best stories and it still doesn’t negate the experience of reading them, but I don’t impose either of those two ideas on you. SPOILERED!


Okay! What the hell is this book about?

The Manor


McKamey Manor is this place where you can go and get tortured for hours on end, and for some reason there’s a waiting list of months because of all the people that want to try it! Very few people make it through the “experience”—you’re not allowed to disclose anything about what that is—but some of those who do get through go on to become Manor staff. What the hell?! Who are these people who want to go through this experience? What might that experience consist of? Who came up with the idea and why?

That’s more or less what the story’s about. I didn’t have answers to those questions, but I figured if I sat down to write, my interpretation would come out.

I also wanted to flavour it with my own experience of being young, unhappy and desperate to be seen as cool or outrageous. I don’t think I’d’ve gone as far as signing up for McKamey Manor, but I understand the impulse, and I think for some it must have something to do with attention starvation as a manifestation of not feeling loved enough.

Tammy O’ Shanter(y)

“Tam O’Shanter” is a favourite poem in the Robertson household. It tells the important story of a guy who’s out drinking too late, much to the dismay of his wife, and he finds the devil dancing in a church and hits on a witch. Witches and warlocks chase after him on his horse, but he makes it safely over a bridge—witches can’t cross water—but not before a witch yanks off his horse’s tail. It ends thusly:

“Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy joys o'er dear -
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.”

Essentially, if you’re tempted by drinking too much and short skirts, you might get more than you bargained for: remember what happened to Tam O’ Shanter’s horse!

Which is, not much. It lost its tail. It escaped unscathed. It’ll be fine.

It’s a response to the epic poems of the time that Robert Burns felt were overly moral, so he said, just chill and have fun.

Maybe 18th century Scottish nightlife posed minimal threats to serial carousers, and I did want to give an updated version of this same message originally: Tammy, the hot mess in the tartan skirt, escapes witches by crossing a body of water and riding on a carousel horse into another dimension, discovering upon arrival that her horse has lost its tail. I figured in the original ending she’d just head back to her squat and laugh it off with her friends, but my subconscious had a different message.

I just think the party lifestyle is devoid of Tam O’ Shanter’s innocence. There’s way worse things than drink, way worse people than witches dancing a jig, at every corner. There is also a daringness to youth that I think is great, the try-anything-once attitude, and I wish it didn’t have such high penalties. But I also think it could use more direction. For example, my husband likes to joke that he wants to visit the Church of Scientology in Oslo. It is just a joke, but it isn’t funny. (A lot of his jokes aren’t funny.) But that kind of thing, what with all the risks known about it, just shouldn’t be joked about, I think. Well, you’re free to joke about anything, but if the joke is, ‘Hey, now that you’ve loved me for so long, watch me piss this person you can’t live without down the drain’, I think we can agree that’s B material at best.

I’ve always naturally been a very serious person, and I use that to direct the messages of most of my stories, sure, at the risk of sounding overly moral, but, fine: I believe in my mission.

I wish there weren’t such high penalties for young people trying shit out—believe me!—but what I’ve experienced tells me otherwise. I had an obligation to allow my subconscious to say what it wanted to say. And it went way wide with its message! But already I get the feeling from my readers that they sensed my obligation to allow the story to be as cruel as it needed to be: you can’t sense (I hope), like I can with many violent works, a gleefulness about it, like in American Psycho, anything by Chuck Palahniuk or Irvine Welsh. I think that explains the dislike of these authors that people never really manage to express: it’s not the violence or the cruelty that they use but just how much they revel in it.

This concept of intent is so important: It’s what Ricky Gervais says distinguishes a good joke from a bad one, maybe even an unacceptable one; it’s what distinguishes what I’m willing to disclose to anyone—in other words, there’s absolutely nothing I’m not willing to tell you about myself (especially through fiction, which is one of the reasons it exists, I think), it just depends on what I think you want with that information. If you want ammunition on me, I won’t tell you anything. If you’re suffering somehow and hope that sharing something with me will alleviate that suffering somehow, I’ll do my best to help you out. There is in fact nothing more distasteful to me in literature and in life than cruel intent, but that intent may manifest itself in wilful and overt destruction or dressed insidiously in sheep’s clothing. 'I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar.' The poison is the issue: not the sugar or the bitter pill.

So trust me: I’m not that happy about the violence. I have to apologise to readers who find it too much; I have to warn coworkers and ask them to judge me on other, less-violent works at a later date that I can’t even guarantee will see the light of day; I’ve begged family members to support this story but not to read it. But what can you do? I had to follow the compulsion.

Satoshi Kon said of Perfect Blue, “[If] the story or the character or the expression of a mental state requires a violent expression, then I wouldn't hesitate to use it." So I don’t feel a need to justify myself; I just thought this was an interesting writing lesson.


Blackburn

One of the most interesting things that developed, I think, is the character of Blackburn. I had no plans to put him in the story at all, originally. All I had were Tammy, Rudy, Ollie and Alex. I knew Tammy and Rudy were art school buddies and that Ollie, Rudy’s ex, and his brother Alex, worked at the manor, and that they shared a dark past of some sort. That was all. But when Rudy led Ollie into the manor, there was Blackburn, brooding on a bench. And from there he just took over.

I mentioned in an interview with Chris Harrison that I felt this story drawing to a natural close towards the end, but I was enjoying writing it and wanted the space it created to be as big as possible—but given that two of the characters spent the majority of their lives inside Blackburn’s head (and I didn't know that's where they were until Rudy showed up to explain it), I thought I would be detracting from the power of characterising him like that if I gave the reader a “final showdown”, which the novella notably lacks (although Robertson savants will be used to me getting impatient towards the end of a story and wrapping it up as fast as physically possible!) A final showdown would’ve been as fun as it would’ve been inappropriate. We learn everything we need to know about Blackburn through the content of his manor, and later on, his head.

It was in fact the publishers who requested the two sections from his perspective. The first one I wrote was the introduction. I think most reasonably educated people would assume someone who had such an egregious profession would’ve had traumatic childhood experiences, so I don’t think the scene is necessary in terms of its illumination through backstory, rather that it prepares the reader for what’s to come, because there is some build-up that follows that has a bit more dread to it with the intro included. The second Blackburn scene was another request that I wouldn’t have otherwise written or felt necessary to include in the story, but I do like that it reveals he would rather not be the way he is, that it’s something he has to fight against, that external circumstances locked him out of being the person he otherwise could have been. This is a pretty typical motif though, right? No Disney villain or Harry Potter baddie is complete without something that was outside of their control defining the dark path they chose, so much so that without this scene, you might well assume this was the case. Still, humanising is my biggest mission, I think. What I’m currently writing is, I’m realising as I type, a counterpoint to my humanising mission: what happens when you humanise the wrong human? Some people are just rotten. But Blackburn isn’t one of them—or at least, he wasn’t always.

Oh, and finally, I found this GIF of you after reading:

[A. Blumer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first time reading anything considered psychedelic horror and by god, it was quite the trip. I enjoyed every turn, twist, cut, and rip. Not only was this very well written, but Leo X. Ropertson does a great job at building up to one bizarre climax in only 70 pages. The black and white images added in were a great touch as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed this dark and kinky nightmare, and recommend this to anyone looking for a quick escape into Slipspace!

[Jane Jago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay. This is psychedelic horror. It picks you up and shakes you, and once you think you have it figured out it shakes you again.

It's a work of intense imagination, but it isn't a comfortable read. It isn't meant to be.

Read if you are brave enough.

[Harry Whitewolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read all of Leo X Robertson’s other books, I couldn’t help but compare this one to his others, and I came to the conclusion that this isn’t my favourite of his works (that would still be Rude Vile Pigs), but it is most definitely his best work. Objectively speaking, this short novella is near perfection. Leo’s style of descriptive writing has been honed to its finest, the structure and first person narration of different characters has been meticulously worked out, and the story itself is just damn good – and whilst there are many references I could attach to this (It’s something like David Lynch, Dante, Andre Breton, Stephen King, Georges Bataille and the Marquis de Sade hanging out on acid in a forgotten corner of Videodrome cyberspace where the fairground has come to town), more than anything, it’s completely unique.

Bonespin Slipspace combines horror, sex, gore, magic, ritualism, metaphysics, surrealism and transcendence in a twisted and compelling novella that explores ideas of pushing boundaries, the human condition and the blur between good and evil. It packs a lot in for 70 pages, and it also has the perfect accompanying illustrations too. Highly recommended.

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 1 out of 5]

Writing hallucinatory sequences is hard - do it well, you are sucked in and don't have the time to think too much about the strange imagery you're shown, you endure it and it's exhilarating, like walking in a rainstorm that cuts off your oxygen.

Do it badly, however, and it becomes at best silly, and at worst just boring. And that's where I land with Bonespin Slipspace - bored out of my mind. I see other reviewers saying how precisely constructed this book is, and to me it read like the worst kind of semi-random. Images don't connect, there is no feeling of the uncanny, it never becomes scary.

There's some gore, quite a lot of sex, and even those never become shocking. They're just there. Lifeless, inert.

Book has a great title, though, I'll give it that.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is missing one thing it needs a small intro wherein it suggests what type of drug you should take before starting and what insane techno/metal music should be played at ear bleeding levels. I took cod-liver oil and listened to Music link

This has to be 2016's sexiest book of the year, ya know, in the way the sexy chatterer cenobite was in hellraiser. this lass....



The plot is a journey through Blackburn's manor/mind and the journey is one of the craziest things I've read. I had great fun, it was so revolting at times that I must of been pulling some odd faces...in fact maybe future readers of this should record themselves whilst reading it and then post the videos online, let's get this craze started so that one day Leo can afford his own Blackburn Manor.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and applaud Leo for being brave/strong enough to write it.

Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...

[Rupert Dreyfus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea where this story came from but, like some of Robertson's other books, it has some of the bravest storytelling I've ever read. And it's extremely disgusting with lots of explicit shagging and ritualistic gore. I went through at least one box of tissues during the first half of the book and now feel dirty. It's also bursting with creativity and the writing is some of the best I've read from the author. There were some sentences which were really lovely and the artwork helped to set a comic bookish tone.

I'm not a big fan of horror which is the only reason I'd be lying if I chucked five stars it it, but I did enjoy Robertson's distinctive take on the genre and look forward to more like this as he upgrades from low-key indie legend to traditionally published genius.

[Tracy Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never wrote a review of this?! What the...? After being so immersed in Leo's world I guess I thought I'd written something. !! This should imply something about its nature.
Be warned, this is for the lovers of the extreme. Which, usually, I am not, as others will tell you. I'm not generally a horror fan (only like the really good stuff), and this isn't exactly horror. Fantasy seems a better descriptor to me, but it's not THAT kind of fantasy. No talking or mythological animals or magic swords, or armor. (At least I don't remember any). No, this fantasy is more of the Freudian nature, a weird, violent dreamscape which perhaps is so imaginatively done that I am fascinated more than horrified.

It is kinda gross, sometimes, though. But in the best way. Veering off into pure schizoid dimensions, yet still managing to have an interesting message. The gross-out is not really for shock value. You'll see.

[Liis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book via Goodreads giveaway, so I would like to thank Leo X. Robertson for the opportunity and for posting the book out to me super quickly, This novella is definitely one of the most outstanding works on my shelf… It shall be stored on the highest of high shelves, away from the reach of young, innocent minds!

You see that cover? Look at it again… it’ll make your head spin. Yeah, you! You don’t need those shrooms tonight. Just keep staring at the cover.. there, there! …

The whole reading experience was…. it was something… I can’t really find the words. You know when there’s something happening that you don’t have the stomach for but your sadistic subconscious disables you to look away, even to close your eyes? The setting, the characters, the scenes… they’re all an image of a dirty underbelly of a filthy underbelly! Having read the authors description for the novella I can understand where he’s coming from with the background and attitudes of the characters. The youthful intrigue in all things wild, forbidden…but… dayum! In Bonespin Slipspace the norm, even the wild norm, was thrown out the window.

The writing is so descriptive and capturing that Leo has managed to take that which 99,9% of us wouldn’t admit to ever thinking of, would even dare to consider thinking of, and bravely published it into a tale that will shock, shake, disgust. As a reader you’ll be a version of Alice falling down a rabbit hole.. except you won’t land in Wonderland.. you’ll land in a nightmare of torture, sexual extremities and demons with a conclusion which feels more like a prison than a positive outcome! The story has discomfort in spades… and yet I am not entirely sure I was able to truly understand and take away the underlining meaning which I am sure author had neatly woven into the background. Maybe the shock factor caught me too much… Maybe my mind is too closed… Maybe I fell into the trap of ‘selective reading’ and got too caught up on the violence…

My rating: 3 stars. I can’t say I liked it, the whole thing, but I can admire the imagination, the reality, the idea, the bravery in publishing the darkest of the dark…

[Rebecca Gransden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The horror. After finding blank space my home for too long trying to address my biases I’ve decided the only way to move is to embrace every single one of them. I love this novella unreservedly and have been impatiently awaiting its release. For its visionary energy, its call to the vanguard, its joyful mastication of boundary. Bonespin Slipspace knows where it is, it sees the edges that have mesmerised since forever and almost disregards their elevated status. How many times do we have to kill ourselves to prove that we are alive? How many times have you got?

If you want pleasure, if you want pain, if you want the meanness of debauchery and the liberation of debasement, that’s all here. The tangled illusory world of phantom virtues and evils commingle with all the fun of the fair. A manor features, location of rumoured strange rites or ritual. The conductor of events within is a magnificent empty vessel, waiting for your discovery. The novella leads us assuredly along corridors deceptively predetermined, the narrative flowing so confidently that it could shatter at any moment.

Where the novella lives most is in the vitality of the writing, which takes on the full kaleidoscope of modern horror icons and transforms them into a hyperreal spiritual fuckfest. The imagery of the final act is as close to a transcendent home I’ve experienced in literature. Connection is connection, no doubt. It’s difficult to elaborate without projecting what I gained from this, and my tastes are of the more obscure and esoteric kind for sure. For those who are open-minded about horror, who accept that extremity of sex and violence is a necessary avenue of exploration sometimes, this novella presents a magnetic way of seeing. Instilled with magical intensity and wicked inventiveness, this is my favourite Robertson. Ultimate beauty, man.

[Simon Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this made me feel like a voyeur who tries to peer too closely at some Danse Macabre and falls over a slippery edge to become trapped in someone else's bad trip or nightmare. Characters that seem to have drifted out a Bret Easton Ellis novel are subjected to a tortuous series of ordeals that would make Clive Barker's Cenobites envious; the monsters chasing them (and us) across the pages manifesting like archetypal nightmares from our prehistoric lizard brains channelled through our modern day puritanism and inhibitions.

If you enjoy a good nightmare (or at least the feeling when you wake up from one) then this fiercely imaginative novella should be right up your dark alleyway. Each surreal set-piece conjures up images reminiscent of Hieronymus Bosch or some other renaissance depiction of hell (maybe if the artist had taken some hallucinogen or suffered a particularly delirious fever), in fact reading this feels more like a phantasmagorical visual experience than a narrative one; albeit a visual experience filled with optical illusions, shifting sands and gore. Lots of gore. This is an original, unsettling and vivid work of fiction.

[G. Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robertson hits us with an immersive, visually detailed psycho-reality that will have us running for cover in a funhouse sex dungeon before you can say "I'm too young to die."

[Arthur Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

(Sorry, confused the title with Meatspin for a second there!)

[Mary Papastavrou · Rating 5 out of 5]

The things I loved about Leo's latest creation: The plot was breathless fast, passionate, fearsome, wild, elemental, cruel, obscene, maximalist, grotesque. In between ethereal, misshapen tenderness and humanity were slotted, subtle enough to miss it into the diabolical whole, if you are not sensitive enough. And the whole synthesis was brought together with erudite language, intricate craftsmanship, poignancy and method.
The fact that I don't even like the horror genre is highly irrelevant. Great writing transcends those conventions.

[Bran Gustafson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I wasn't really ready for this crazy book, which is probably the best way to experience it. This book is a trip and I enjoyed every moment of it.

It's short but packs quite a punch. While it's not for the faint of heart and is pretty damn depraved, it's also got a a warmth and empathy to it that ultimately makes it humanistic.

I'll definitely be reading more from Leo X Robertson in the future.

[mrhh714 · Rating 5 out of 5]

things I've never seen or imagined put to paper in a technicolor acid show. this is WTF territory and in a league of its own, on a throne, with antlers.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly unique and twisted novella! 70 pages packed with surreal ritualistic gore and sex where there are no boundaries, and the fight for survival is crucial. Be careful what you wish for ....

The descriptive language is damn near perfect, with the use of first person narration on point. Here the author displays his immense talent and (scary) intense imagination. The fantastic illustrations are also great visual accompaniments to the story.

Highly recommended to those who are not offended by graphic horror and gratuitous sex. I will definitely read this again as I'm sure there is more to be gained from a re-read.

Thanks to the author for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Paul Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know nothing about horror, but this was absolutely deliciously disgusting. Well done!

[Xian Xian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bonespin Slipspace is a psychedelic thriller or bizarro. It falls into the magical realist, satirical space but is also a mystery thriller where the murders are solved by the main characters, slipping into differing dimensions of reality, where the answers are found by its witness. With it's surreal Harvester style of horror - which was a pretty infamous horror game on the PC during the late 90s - it somehow manages to be a euphoric journey that is still very much in the realm of bizarro, with its dark humor and the innocent Goosebumps premise that collapsed into a body horror fest with supernatural landscapes in other dimensions that you often dream of, but wish to never visit again. What I loved about this novella was that it was much like a twist of the early, campy 80s and late 90s horror mixed with the blood spatter of today's extreme terror that I honestly don't really pay much attention to. I can't talk much about horror, because the furthest I go into the genre is Bizarro - which isn't always horror, but is most popular for that genre I think - I only read 3 Stephen King novels, and I've been getting into Japanese psychological horror video games. However this novella proves that horror fiction in book form is achievable, it is enjoyable. So if you're looking to get into bizarro literature, Bonespin Slipspace is totally in that genre, if not, close to it, so it's a great intro into the genre and if you're still interested and want short reads, I also suggest the New Bizarro Author Series, specifically, The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O'Malley. Bonespin Slipspace is a nostalgic, atmospheric and bloody, I consider it one of Robertson's best. I read it during the fall off and on, but then distracted with other things along the way, but it was one of the more memorable novels I read last year.

[Andy Carrington · Rating 4 out of 5]

A melting pot bubbling with restless overthinking, violent-horror fantasy and porno smut.

Truth be told, Leo X trips me out a bit: I don't know whether I should be aroused or angry.

Either way, I like it.

[Theresa Braun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consider yourself warned that this book is not for the squeamish or conservative reader. If you are easily bothered by sexual material or gore, then you can stop right here. Go back to your happy place. If, on the other hand, you are up for taking an imaginative and nightmarish jaunt into Robertson’s creative mind, then all aboard!

In a world full of readily available digital entertainment, it’s not hard to conceive of our youth getting bored or desensitized to both media and everyday life. Take a few young characters who are searching for something to do, something that might make them feel alive, and you have the premise for the beginning of this story. Robertson is one of those writers who makes himself accessible to his fans—through his podcast Losing the Plot and his open communication on forums like Goodreads. I stumbled upon his insights regarding this book and was quick to absorb what he had to say. I mean, how often are readers lucky enough to find an author who is open about his inspiration and his way of thinking—not to mention who responds to comments and questions on social media? For those of you who want to get a more in-depth interpretation of the story, I encourage you to check out his post on Goodreads.

Here’s one of the things Robertson said regarding Bonespin: “…I also wanted to flavour it with my own experience of being young, unhappy and desperate to be seen as cool or outrageous. I don’t think I’d’ve gone as far as signing up for McKamey Manor, but I understand the impulse, and I think for some it must have something to do with attention starvation as a manifestation of not feeling loved enough.” Most of us have been there and can relate to what Robertson has captured in his characterization. He does it by taking us through differing and effective viewpoints of the manor experience, including that of the slimy owner/creator himself, Blackburn.

Overall, you will get lost in the author’s vibrant and cringe-worthy descriptions of what goes on in this ‘club’. I really can’t tell you any more without ruining the read and the ending, but if you have the stomach for it, I suggest allowing Robertson to help you blur the lines between pleasure and pain, youth and age, time and space, and reality and fantasy, not to mention issues of gender and sexuality (and a whole host of other polar opposites). It’s something Robertson does with ease.

This is another quality publication released by Unnerving Magazine that’s worth picking up. And, it’s short enough to be read in one sitting—that is, if you can handle it.

[Jack Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have quickly become a fan of Leo’s work. Granted, I have only read one other book of his (Jesus of Scumburg) and a couple for other shorts published here and there, but I bloody love them, I do. I also respect what he is doing with his podcast, Losing the Plot, which is well worth a listen to by writers and all those interested in such things.

Bonespin Slipspace is truly terrifying. You know how sometimes explicit thoughts can be a little forbidden or taboo, well Leo takes that feeling and turns it up to 11. No, scrap that, he turns it up to 111! Yea, it’s not for children, or those easily offended by obscenity. It’s full of sex, BDSM, horror, gore, vomit inducing acts, and worst of all… WITCHES! I thought it was great!

It wasn’t perfect for me - just a couple of personal preference things. I found some parts difficult to follow as the text doesn’t always flow well, and sometimes a few things felt like they were done for shock value. This is a shorter story and I felt it would have benefited from being a little longer, with more dynamics in the story. The story is relatively gentle to start with, then shit kicks off, and then it settles down again. Having some moments to breath between shitstorms would have helped give the punches a bit more weight. The ending is superb. It’s slightly mysterious, weird, and thought provoking. Although this has a lot of gore and somewhat senseless violence, it’s also a very intelligent story, and Leo blends the two together very well.

Leo’s creative writing and descriptions are second to none. There are a couple of batshit crazy moments with heavy surreal hallucinations and Leo does a fantastic job of painting these scenes. As I have found with other stories by Leo, Bonespin became the most enjoyable when I just went with it. It’s so far away from my everyday thoughts that if I thought about it too much, it didn’t work. The horror in this is just fantastic. Gore and slasher horror isn’t normally for me, but there were moments where I really felt the terror of the POV character and was screaming for them to get out of there. As a short book, this is a super quick read and a strong shot of enjoyable horror.

Anyway, I’m off to attend a party that an estranged ex has invited me to out of the blue - should be fun! Until next time, Peace and Love!

Random Melon Reads - Blog | Twitter | Bloglovin’

[Selcouth Station · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early in Robertson's mind-bending Bonespin Slipspace, something terrible happens to Kingsley Blackburn Jr. He is nine years old when, for the third year in a row, his father takes him to the Freak Show. Every year at a certain point the side, his father's hands wander and Kingsley leaves his body, refusing to witness his own sexual abuse. However, in the opening to this bizarre book, Kingsley Jr is no longer afraid. He is determined to keep his eyes open and be brave, though at first readers aren't privy to the true horror he plans to overcome. When they reach the hall of mirrors where Kingsley Sr's begins his sickening act, Kingsley Jr. stabs his father twice with the sharp Transformer pencils his father won in the raffle. He tells his father to 'close his eyes and dream' as life seeps away from him.
Read the whole review on www.selcouthstation.com