Spider Season

By: Billy Hanson

Narrated by: Various

Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

A man obsessed with his own death, a sleep-deprived husband, a violently jealous teenager, and a businesswoman on a lethal trip to Europe are just a few of the characters from Billy Hanson's dark vision of the world in Spider Season. Here, the danger looms within every stranger, co-worker, close friend, family member, and often within your own mind. This chilling collection explores the shadowy corners of the human psyche, where delusion, rage, and paranoia can thrive.

Spider Season is the debut collection by Billy Hanson. Deeply haunting and immensely enjoyable, these stories are sure to leave you wide-eyed and breathing heavily.

Stories include: "Light Sleeper", "The Clearing", "The End of Edgar Wren", "She Was Perfect", "Paris with the Lights Turned Low", "Music from the Gun Room", and "Everyone Else Is Asleep".

©2018 Dirigo Entertainment (P)2018 Dirigo Entertainment

Thrilling, Chilling and Immersive

Last week I received for review Spider Season, a short stories collection by writer and filmmaker Billy Hanson, and I dove right into the audiobook although it was almost midnight. After 10 minutes with the first story, Light Sleeper, I stood up in bed, pulled my earpods out and hit stop. I resumed the audiobook the next day, with the sun shining and the drapes wide open.

As you might have guessed, Spider Season is a collection of short stories in the horror genre, but the subjects are leaning more towards the psychological thriller area. There are seven such awesome stories, each of them with their own characters, setting and atmosphere, and all are great, thrilling, chilling, entertaining and scary as hell.

Besides Light Sleeper I tremendously enjoyed The Clearing, Music from the Gun Room and Everyone Else is Asleep, the last two being performed by the author himself. The rest of this collection is also good, but I wanted to tell you about these favorites of mine, because I’m still thinking of them after I have finished the audiobook. The characters were very well developed and the plot lines were more then interesting.

One other thing that I appreciated is the fact that Mr. Billy Hanson also produced the audiobook and composed the music for it. I really hold in high esteem all the authors involved in the production of their audiobooks. Mr. Hanson and all of the other narrators involved in this production are clearly professionals and all the stories are excellently performed. All the characters come to life, the level of immersion is complete and the atmosphere is just perfect!

As you may know already, I’m not into short stories, actually, this is my second collection that I’ve listened to from the beginning to the end, and I’m glad I accepted the challenge. Now, after more than 6 hours spent in the company of the rich characters created by Mr. Hanson, all that I can say is: I hope you’ll take the plot from The Clearing, expand it, and write a thrilling novel. I will keep an eye out for any new releases from Billy Hanson.

From the man that awakes in the middle of the night drenched in sweat after he hears strange sounds in the house, to the cursed clearing in the woods, to a person so obsessed by the way he will die, to the first days of a unhealthy relationship, to a beautiful and smart Business woman fearing for her life in Paris and at the end from a father remembering deeply buried secrets when his son shows him an object from the past, all these stories and characters are unique and will stay with you and haunt you for a long, long time…

Fans of Stephen King, Richard Matheson and Ray Bradbury should find Spider Season by Billy Hanson more than satisfying and very entertaining!

Excellent

The ability to create entertaining short stories is a real talent
The whole Collection was fabulous but my top picks are
Light sleeper about why you shouldn’t investigate the bumps in the night
The clearing about if a curse is real or people reached a braking point
And music from the gun room a more psychological horror of a father telling his son the story of the tragic night his high school band set out to Record an album
A well narrated debut I’m excited to see what the author comes up with next
I received a free review audiobook and voluntarily left this review

Great Collection ... Want More

This was a great collection of horror stories and quite a mixed bag. There were some supernatural ones, and just some plain nightmare scenario ones. The psychological terror of these stories infects your mind while you listen and you will probably want some easy reading after you finish this book. Typically, with collections of short stories you get a spectrum of good and bad ones, can’t say that there was one that I didn’t enjoy. Each story is unique and has a different feel as if they were written by different authors. I definitely look forward to more from this author.

By far my favorite was “Music from the Gun Room”. Not only did it perfectly describe the high school rock band experience, but it was the one that affected me the most. I hope the author was a drummer at one point because he perfectly pegged that character. The story itself is awful and the most realistic and probable. It really got under my skin and the last few minutes of the story, which provides a bit of an epilogue, really depressed me. Been a long time since a short story affected me this way. It was simple, yet a very powerful story.

I liked that there were different narrators for the stories. It really changed the dynamic of the them and allowed each one to stand out amongst the others. Each narrator paired perfectly to the story and provided the right character voices and emotion for each story. Collections with the same narrator might be ruined for me now. The music was really neat too, I wish there was more of it throughout the book. Reminded me a bit of the Twin Peaks theme.

I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher

Classic horror

A series of classic horror stories with outstanding narration.

“I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.”

Great collection of horror shorts

A horror anthology that is full of enjoyable listens with great setups and executed very well to make for a surprise for me and an enjoyable collection. Having read a few anthologies in the last year, they often have a few hits but often more misses, and I thought this collection was overall great throughout. The stand out stories for me were Light Sleeper and The Clearing, one gripping me right from the get-go and the other with an awesome idea and execution.

The narration throughout was very good and switches between stories to switch the mood and atmosphere instantly. It differentiates every story and makes for a great device to keep the reader never quite comfortable. A great set of shorts that can develop characters and put forth a good amount of story in their short run times.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Best collection of horror!

At my request, I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! I think this is easily my favorite collection of spooky stories that I’ve heard so far. Each story was equally unnerving in its own twilight zone kind of way. I think the very last one got me the most though. And I even had a dream about the story about the kid who experiences first hand the loss of control people experience from going to the cursed clearing in the woods. I was woken up by my phone ringing, and thank god it did. I actually feel like I know full well the feeling of stabbing someone. What it feels like to do it and then see it and realize what you’ve done. Horrifying!!

Gosh it really messed me up! But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love every second of it. 5 stars in my opinion!

I highly recommend this book. If I didn’t already have it in my library, I’d go out and buy it right now.

People are the Monsters

This collection was a pleasant listen of some very unpleasant things. As I mentioned in the headline, the author writes his stories such that the antagonists are people and that the horror is driven by the evil and bad in people. The two instances where I can recall some supernatural occurrences are also the result of people, though more their exiting of the normal flow of life. So in a way you could draw parallels between these stories and the stories of series like the Twilight Zone as they're explorations of bad people in interesting situations, or existential dread fueled stories focused more on our fragile social contract and the fear of the unknown that could potentially occur when exiting from it. The stories themselves are varied and interesting, a couple have somewhat similar setups but they diverge greatly by the end allowing each to be their own individual bits of storytelling.

What also increases my enjoyment of this collection is the narration. Getting a different person for each story further diversifies the experience and the fact that each of the different narrators does a great job means that at the end you have a collection of stories with no letdowns and narrations for those stories that are also of a high quality allowing the experience to be steady and instead of valleys when you reach stories that aren't as solid there are peaks when something resonates more powerfully with you. As someone who shares some of the same issues I definitely felt the first story Light Sleeper and the last Everyone Else is Asleep more significantly. The stories are written such that you root for the protagonists and that makes it even more absorbing when whatever happens to them happens.

I definitely recommend this collection. I received the review code for this audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this honest review.

Loved it

Usually mixed short stories are a hit and miss with one two being good and the rest just so so or awful. But, I can truly say I liked every single one in this collection. They were haunting and terrifying. Might I just add you may want to keep the lights on while listening. You will thank me later. I was given this audiobook in exchange for voluntary and honest review and I definitely would recommend it.

Creepy!

Started listening to this audiobook right before bed... in the dark. Bad idea! I got the heebie jeebies and I had to listen to a different audiobook to calm my nerves LOL!

The book contains seven different stories, what I loved most was that each story had a different narrator ranging from both male and female. Most of the stories had me hooked from beginning to end, except for "Music from the Gun Room"- didn't care too much about that one, but everyone has their preferences. Overall this audiobook was awesome! Perfect for getting me pumped for the upcoming Fall season!!

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review

Great Shorts

I totally enjoyed these short stories that I wanted more. I have to admit my favorite ones were The Clearing, Red Helping Hand and Light Sleeper. Recommend if you enjoy short physiological horror and would like to see more from author. I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. Thank you

unique and edge of seat reading

The author does an amazing job of engaging your imagination. All the stories are so unique and kept me at the edge of my seat and eager to listen on . Every tale is well written and reminds me somewhat of the classic horror psychological authors such as King and Herbert. I loved practically every minute of it. nothing more to say just outstanding. I was given this book by the author/narrator in return for an honest and unbiased review