The Worm in Every Heart

Stories

By: Gemma Files

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki, Heath Miller, Jo Anna Perrin, Paul Woodson, Tim Lounibos, Anne Flosnik, Natasha Soudek, Alana Kerr Collins, Emily Lawrence, Nancy Wu, Deepti Gupta, Rasha Zamamiri, Gabrielle de Cuir, Jean Brassard, full cast

Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

In the shadows of war and history, the mirror between man and monster breaks …

From the haunted hills of Roman Britain to the sewers of occupied Warsaw … in the bloodied streets of Revolutionary Paris, and the anarchy World War II Shanghai … out of the wilds of America, India, Africa and Europe … down the long savage darkness of the centuries, monsters have fed upon us. They are shapeshifters, vampires, sorcerers and spirits—things named only in myth, and things for which we have no name. They are our demons, our reflections, our desires and our nightmares. And all too often, they are … only human.

In this second collection from Gemma Files—featuring the award-winning ‘The Emperor’s Old Bones’ (winner of the 1999 International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Fiction), and five never-before-published stories—we tour the overlooked intersections between wilderness and civilization where secret dances of fear and pain are performed and hunters and hunted change roles.

Full List of narrators: Stefan Rudnicki, Heath Miller, Jo Anna Perrin, Paul Woodson, Tim Lounibos, Anne Flosnik, Natasha Soudek, Alana Kerr Collins, Emily Lawrence, Nancy Wu, Deepti Gupta, Rasha Zamamiri, Gabrielle de Cuir, Jean Brassard, Helen Lloyd, Carlotta Brentan, Joel Froomkin.

©2004. 2015 Gemma Files. Introduction © 2003 by Nancy Kilpatrick. Afterword © 2015 by Michael Rowe (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

Solid Cosmic & Gothic Horror anthology. (Sexually Explicit!)

“The Worm in Every Heart” horror anthology is an excellent and much braver follow up to Gemma Files first release of short stories entirely comprised of her own work- “Kissing Carrion”. Gemma Files work has become most relevant, highly respected and regarded as one of the “Gold Standard” authors in the Horror genre; especially her Cosmic & Gothic Horror- much of which tapping deep into the “Lovecraftian Mythos” vein; not leaning entirely on “Cthulhu” or otherworldly hideous monsters- the “Elder Gods”, but delves more into the daily life of the people and lifestyles of the Inmamouth and Dunnwich influenced society. Much like Caitlin R Kiernan, Files is not bashful or the least bit hesitant to explore the mysterious sexual relationships between humans and “the tainted” or “deep ones” and aliens as a whole that knowingly or unknowingly engage in highly charged sexually explicit exploitation; exploration and copulation. This of course is not the case in all of her work; not at all, that said- this second collection of horror is definitely in theme with matters of the heart and passion just like the title suggests: “Kissing Carrion” or with this release: “Worms of the Heart”. What’s important with this excellent collection of stories like all of her stories is her exceptional writing style and flow; she is not the splatterpunk author using foul language, graphically horrific scenes of gore and violence with over the top impossible story plots, not even close. Rather she writes intelligent, congruent, very interesting and most intriguing tales of terror that cross all terrain of the horror genre, some SiFi, fantasy, adventure, crime, and Macabre Gothic classical noir. Like Laird Barron, Chuck Palahniuk & Windig, Ligotti and Caitlin Kieran- when there is gore or sexually explicit material if not both, it’s done with the artistic creativity eased with some light if not down right hilarious humor to keep us engaged in the story and not throwing the book across the room due to complete disbelief and disgust of the unnecessary tripe and pure gutter level imagination of the depraved deviant that must of written the trash! No, nothing like that at all, however, if sensitive to sexually explicit or descriptive content or graphic violence; gore, I would advise staring in small doses or another one of Gemma Files novels or anthologies. The narration is outstanding with an epic cast of narrators including Rudniky and Xe Sands.

Unexpected disappointment

I've enjoyed Files' writing before and I was looking forward to this one, but I was unexpectedly disappointed in how little it grabbed me. I did enjoy some of it, and the moment-to-moment writing style was solid, but most of the stories just didn't hold my interest. I was either thinking about or actually skipping ahead far too many times than I'd prefer for an anthology, sadly, enough to outweigh what I liked about it.