
“Exhumation started off creepy, progressed to f***ed up and stayed firmly in that position until the very end.”
Author | Critic

“Exhumation started off creepy, progressed to f***ed up and stayed firmly in that position until the very end.”

Mike Thorn is a beloved Losing the Plot alumnus who returns to discuss his latest book, Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation, out with Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp Shocks series. We talk about the influence of location on fiction, films we’ve enjoyed recently, the challenge of long distance relationships and more!

Destiny of Howling Libraries reviews Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation and welcomes me as her blog’s first ever interviewee.

“This is an excellent double shot of Thorn’s brand of creeping, slow burn horror, continuing from 2017’s short story collection Darkest Hours.
You might know Thorn through his film criticism in the MUBI Notebook or Vague Visages, among others. His fiction has appeared in Dark Moon Digest and Tales to Terrify. His style is somewhere between the weirder short works of Stephen King and the more down to earth works of Clive Barker. I found Darkest Hours to be a surprisingly fun read where I often didn’t know where I was going or why, but when I got there I felt fully satisfied with the journey.”
Read Tim Murr’s full review of Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation in Biff Bam Pop.

Dreams of Lake Drukka & Exhumation is another excellent, high-quality addition to Demain Publishing’s Short Sharp Shocks! imprint, and also a further demonstration that Mr Thorn is a skilled and deeply imaginative Horror writer able to range across sub-genres at will. Dreams of Lake Drukka is a fantastic short story that really digs into the nature of parental loss, delayed grief and then mixing in elements of supernatural horror; and Exhumation is a fast-paced and gory tale of supernatural dues owed.

“Both tales carry an air of unease and some awesome shocking moments that will linger with me for a while I’m sure. I have yet to check out Mike Thorn’s short story collection, Darkest Hours, but on the strength of these two it’s certainly creeping up that TBR pile!”

Join Niall Howell (author of Only Pretty Damned) and Mike Thorn at New Level Brewing Co. on August 21 from 7-9 pm. New Level is offering a special Damned-theme Clown Alley Porter for this event.

For episode 376, Tales to Terrify has released its audio adaptation of Mike Thorn’s latest short story “@GorgoYama2013” (read by Spencer DiSparti).
Also featured on this episode: part 2 of Drew Sebesteny reading Arthur Machen’s genre classic The Great God Pan.

“I truly enjoyed reading this book. It is evident through his writing that Thorn has a true love for the horror genre. Each of the stories were distinct and well thought out. He can write subtle horror and then switch to something weird and morbid. He masterfully uses imagery to make his fictional work all that more realistic and disturbing. But he also leaves a lot up to the reader’s own imagination, which doesn’t always work, but in this case it was beautifully executed.”