Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advanced audio copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This collection seriously blew me away. I finished reading it a few weeks ago, and I still think about several of the stories on a day-to-day basis. The audio version was fabulous-- there were several different narrators for the different stories and they really captured the mania, melancholy, urgency, and desperation needed for the different stories.

I gave this a 4 star since there were a couple of stories that just didn't quite work for me:
-Clown Face
-Saudade
-Hiraeth
-How Not to Come Undone

BUT, that being said, the following stories were amazing and I genuinely haven't stopped thinking about them for weeks:
-Repent
-Nodus Tollens***
-From within
-In his house
-Open waters
-Ring of fire

Each story was pretty different, but they all had that same ~vibe~ and you could tell they were written by a masterful storyteller. I feel bad rating it lower than a 5 star since I enjoyed these stories SO much, but anthologies are hard because it's almost impossible to have 10+ stories that all just *work* for a single reader. I would highly recommend this anthology for horror fans, especially if you love stories about desperation and what it means to be human.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a Great collection of 14 short stories of Horror and some sci-fi elements. A Dark Fiction collection at its best.
I highly recommend! I look forward to reading more by Richard Thomas.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received the ARC for this on Netgalley and found it to be a well written dark collection that is both unsettling and unnerving. I am not sure if it is because I am a parent but it made my skin crawl at times and I had to stop and take a breath. It really gets to you and I don't know if I liked that or not. It was not an issue with the writing, I am wondering if it is an issue I had with the narration and the mindset of the author when writing it. I have read alot of horror and it takes alot to make me take a step back and go okay I need a minute. This one did this and I don't know if that was a good thing or not. I would have rated it higher but I am really having a hard time figuring out my feelings on this story and trying to decide if it is a personal issue with the story or if it is the story telling that is the issue. I am honestly not sure. I guess you will just need to read it for yourself to find out...

This book was full of twists and turns and literally had me guessing until the end. Highly recommend. Amazing insightful and witty short stories on horror. Absolutely loved this book. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The narrators were all very good. I liked the full cast. Each person brought a new perspective to each story. This was my first attempt at Richard Thomas’ writing. I’ve heard good things, but I just didn’t connect. I think his brand of horror didn’t work for me. There was a lot of horrific assaults, which isn’t horror to me, but shock. Horror, for me, isn’t about real horrors. That is a different thing. I mean, people can be the baddies, but I just don’t like it when each story is about some person who likes to torture other people. I don’t like Torture Porn movies and these stories seems like that.

I don’t read a lot of,books like this. I wasn’t super excited, and that was wrong. it’s really good. From the line, of the first Story I was hooked. I like that there’s multiple narrators. I always love that. and of course they get a NetGalley for sending me this review copy for

I'm always on the fence when it comes to short story collections because I find they usually have one or two great and solid stories and the rest tend to disappoint me. Luckily this was not the case of this collection. It was a great collection of stories from start to finish. The stories kept me on my toes. Some of the stories were so good I wanted more of it.
If horror is your jam I would definitely check this out. You'll get multiple great horror stories but you may also be introduced to some new authors.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a strange, bone-chilling collection of short stories. If you are looking to scare yourself and enjoy the short story format, I would highly recommend checking out this recently published title. There wasn't a single story in the entire collection that I found to be weak. Thomas, the author, shows off his incredible range and I am definitely looking forward to reading his other work.

I desperately wanted to like this book. Especially with how gorgeous the narration is, but I just couldn't get behind Thomas's work. Especially as we would constantly start off on a path of psychological horror, only to end up swerving off into body horror.
I am sure that there are many people out here that will love this collection of stories, it just isn't for me.

Rating: 2.75 out of 5
-Characters: 2.5/5
-Cover: 3/5
-Story: 2.5/5
-Writing: 3/5
Genre: Anthology/Horror
Type: Audiobook
Worth?: Eh

First want to thank Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this in exchange for an honest review! When my request to read this book I was super excited since I had it on my 'to be read' list but there was a lot of confusion going on and a good chunk of the stories I couldn't tell you what happened if it saved my life.

If you are going to do an audiobook with more than one story I HIGHLY suggest you break it down each story to a chapter and an essay to its own chapter. I had gone to the chapter list to go back to one of the stories and couldn't find it because there are no names to each chapter.

I did like the essay part of the book, it was really nice to hear about where the stories came and what gave the author's inspo. I know the rating summed up to a 2.75 but putting a 2 seemed like I harsh rating since I did technically like half of the book and the narrators.

I really enjoyed this creepy collection and could see so many of this stories turned into movies or shows. All of the stories were very original and the different narrators were excellent and added perfectly to the uneasiness. I enjoyed just about every moment of this listen.

A collection of dark, twisted tales fills this collection from Richard Thomas. While this is under the genre of horror, it is so much more than that. There is a blend of Science Fiction, fantasy, and horror that I found hard to forget.

We have A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip. This is one of the stories you expect to find in The Twilight Zone. Almost mild in the telling but a deal that is haunting. You’re left with automatically asking yourself, “What would I do if I made this deal?”

Another tale; A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip. This one was creepy as all get-out. If you dislike or just don’t trust clowns, this will freak you out!

That’s just two stories you will find in this collection, and each of these and the remaining are not just well written but bore into your brain to hang out for a very long time.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is slated to be released on 2/24/2022. I highly suggest the audiobook version. The narrators each hit the exact tone needed to transport you with each separate tale.


Thanks to @Netgalley, Dreamscape Media, Brian Evenson, and Richard Thomas for the opportunity to listen to the audiobook in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion

This is hard to review because I knew I was in trouble almost immediately. This is not my style for reading which is absolutely no fault of the story and author themselves. Most of these stories are conceptual horror, where the terror is seeping and slowly filling the story and things are not really explained at all.

I know its common to complain about showing and not telling but this was all showing and very little telling in most of these stories. Which is fine! Its the better end of the spectrum but I think it would have worked better for me for most of these stories in print instead of audio. Because I got lost in what happened exactly for several of the stories.

In the audio format there is actually author commentary which is super cool to hear about the writing process and the editing and anthology process that is involved in short story horror. I had no idea! After one story, the author commented that he was worried that people wouldn’t get what happened in a particular story and I hate to say that I totally didn’t get what happened. Again, this is on me for not being a particularly analytical reader (or listener in this case) so I think I just lost some threads or got lost in the visuals.

I don’t want to summarize or review stories individually because I think horror is best gone into as blind as possible. Since they are short, there isn’t really a good way to talk about them without giving at least a bit away.

My favorite stories in the anthology were ones that he said did not fit his regular style. So there ya go. Its not you, its me. If you like conceptual horror, want to think, and can definitely deal with some gore than this might be more for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and Dreamscape Audio for the copy of this audiobook!

ARC audiobook provided in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this whole collection of stories! The audiobook was put together so well with intro music at the beginning of each story, a note from the author after, and different narrators for every story. Without giving any spoilers, my favorite stories were the one with the Halloween poker and coin flip, and the virtual reality takeover with the man living with his cat. So so good. If you like horror without all the bloody violence or jump scares, this is the book for you! I’m sure when this releases I’ll be buying myself a copy!

#bookreview

“Ghosts of the tropes you know” — This description made by Brian Evenson in the introduction of this collection fits in all the ways 😍😍

Spontaneous Human Combustion is a collection of short stories by Richard Thomas. The stories have been previously published in various anthologies alongside the likes of Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. Stories of horror with some sci-fi swirled in, these stories contain whispers of influence from The Twilight Zone, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft.

Or to summarize — THIS BOOK IS DA BOMB

💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣🔥💣

Here’s the thing. Sometimes you just need short stories. It gives authors the chance to tell a story in a “punchier” way.

But also, I know for me, sometimes life is a lot 😵‍💫😮‍💨 It’s full of tasks, stress, and anxiety that just takes up all the brain space. This makes it hard for me to commit to reading a full length story because my focus drifts so easily.

But with short stories!!
The longest one is about a 45 minute read. These are the stories I have the brain capacity for during these high-anxiety times 🤩🤩

So whether you need some short stories, a punchy fright, or a thought provoking sci-fi full of quiet fear — this collection has something for you!

Snag a copy from Hoopla or your favorite book store 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

Chicken rating: 🐔🐔
(One chicken being a cozy horror and five being “oh my gosh someone come hold me” terror 😂)

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I thought this was an interesting collection of short stories. My favorite being Nodus Tollens. I would recommend to anyone looking for a variety of different types of “horror” short stories.

As a collection of short stories, Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas is an incredible feat. He manages to maintain not only terrifying pace, subversive plot twists and relatable pathos, but he manages to also run the gamut of story types in the genre. Included are a detective noir-type story where the narrator is not what he seems, A fresh and unsettling take on the creepy clown trope, and a post-apocalyptic tale like I’ve never read before. As an audiobook, the narrators were mostly great, except for two of them who were rather flat in their readings. Other than that nitpick with the format and not the book itself, I truly loved this collection of short stories! 4/5!

This book was not what I thought it would be and in all honesty did not love the narrators. I appreciate the chance to review but I just don't think this book was for me in the audio format.

TW: SA, assault

Spontaneous Human Combustion by Richard Thomas was not the horror collection I thought it would be based on the. For instance, this book is much heavier on the dark fantasy and sci-fi than on the horror. I found one story truly scary. Even so, I’m not averse to dark fantasy and sci-fi collections, so that’s not why I’m deducting stars.
I’m deducting stars because I found, consistently, that the horror elements of many stories relied on accounts of assaults of various kinds from the point of view of the character I was least interested in. In the interest of not giving spoilers, in a story regarding SA, I am not interested in hearing how the main character was impacted by someone else’s trauma, particularly if they were the aggressor. I understand, on a basic level, why Thomas chose to write stories from the point of view of the aggressor—it’s a horror story, after all—but, personally, I felt that in doing so, these very sensitive topics were being used for shock value or to instantly increase the dislike or disgust toward the main character. Which, again, sure—I understand on a basic level. I just wish that Thomas’ stories involving SA had chosen a different route to increase the horror factor. I also found the lack of diverse characters disappointing. I remember exactly two mentions of POC throughout the collection, neither of which I found appropriate or effective.
On a more positive note, I did get hooked by a few of the stories included in the collection, and I was impressed by the wide array of story topics and methods of execution. Thomas includes an author’s note at the end of each story, which I found useful for filling in any gaps in my understanding. I also enjoyed the various voice actors used to record the audiobook version of Spontaneous Human Combustion—it provided refreshing changes of pace between chapters, as well as continuities between connected stories.

I thought from the first story that this collection wasn't going to be for me, and I was right. Some of them were ok, but most were bad.