This book is a little different from anything else I've reviewed at the Nameless Zine for a few reasons.

For one, it's an anthology compiled by Danni Winn and Donovan Smith for charity, that charity being Mulligan's Manor, an independent non-profit home for abused, displaced or neglected LGBTQ+ youths. For two, every contribution is a drabble, a story of exactly one hundred words, that's only themed by a vague connection to the horror genre. For three, three of those drabbles are mine, because I'm one of the members of the horror community who were invited to contribute, something I was very happy to do.

So, naturally, I firmly believe that my drabbles are the best in the book and they should prompt you to buy everything I've ever written, but I'll shut up about that now because I'm hardly an impartial critic of my own work. If you enjoy my three, then I'm happy but I'm far from the most notable contributor.

If you're a film fan, you may recognise the names of people like Nicholas Vince, famous for playing Chatterer in the Hellraiser movies; or prolific scream queen Debbie Rochon who's now racked up well over two hundred features. There are a number of directors in the line-up, like Adam Marcus (Jason Goes to Hell), Billy Pon (Circus of the Dead) and Richard Rowntree (Dogged). There are actors: Cortney Palm (Zombeavers) and Charles Chudabala (Irrational Fear). There's even a cinematographer, Zane Hershberger, from Cryptids.

If you're a fan of literary horror, there are fewer names that leap out, but David Owain Hughes is one, as he's built quite a reputation with his novels. P. J. Blakey-Novis has an array of novels out from Red Cape Publishing, who brought this to print. I'm sure there are others.

If you're just a fan of things that happen in the Phoenix metropolitan area, you'll know a few names from multiple events, not just mine but that of Chris McLennan, who runs Phoenix FearCon; Jay Michaels, who MC's it; and Dineta Williams, going without -Trigg for a change, who runs A Night of Misfit Films. Danni Winn and Donovan Smith are also involved with the local scene.

As you might imagine, given that not all these people are writers, the quality varies a tad. It's fair to say that it's pretty damn easy to write a drabble, given that you're held to a strict one hundred word count, but it's not as easy as it might seem to write a good one. Some of these drabbles left me dry, whether that's because they didn't do enough or because they did too much. Fortunately, there are more that do the job quite nicely, because the writers figured out a way to make that tough word limit work.

My usual approach to constructing a drabble is to try to set a memorable scene and add a twist that completes the picture, something that I may have managed with a drabble called 'Reality Hell', but that's merely one of a number of approaches taken here. One that did is Teige Reid, a name I don't otherwise know, because he or she made my note list twice and nobody else did. 'Fluff Piece' has a neat twist to it and 'Takeout Menu' is even better, nailing its twist and completing its story in the process.

Others who managed to tell a complete story in a scant hundred words are Danni Winn with 'Sunsets', with a magnificent last line to what is probably the best piece on offer here, and C. Marry Hultman with 'Robin', a haunting piece indeed. Also complete, but in completely different way, is 'The April Fool's Day Slasher', which is at once a drabble and a game, a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book in a hundred words. That's a wildly original approach to take and Tony Mardon deserves lots of kudos for taking it and for doing it so well.

While that's unmistakably the most original drabble in this anthology, it's not the only one. Debbie Rochon's 'The Intersection' starts from an utterly different place to any of the other contributions, and I can easily see her in an adaptation. 'Mr Humphries' by Alexander Churchyard and Hannah Paterson finds a very different tone from much of the book, being a polite ghost story. Jack Wells plays with words in 'The Stowaway', as over half his hundred begin with the letter S, not ignoring alliteration on C, V and W too.

Some decided not to even attempt a complete story, instead setting a scene with such power that readers can easily imagine how the rest of it unfolds. Janine Pipe does that earliest with 'Prey', the first highlight of the book. P. J. Blakey-Morris does it better in 'All at Sea', the last highlight of the book. In between, Kenn Hoekstra does it best with 'Restrained'. Other drabbles to provide a strong beginning to a story that's still to be written include Dineta Williams's 'The Coat' and J. Rabid's 'Take That First Step', both complete in their way but with so much possibility still to come.

Another approach that I'm surprised so few people took is that of misdirection, taking us down road and then subtly shifting perspective on us so that we realise that we're really on a completely different road altogether. John Shatzer does this well with 'The Predator', which features another magnificent last line. However MJ Dixon nails this approach with 'Roadkill'.

And with a special callout for the poetic language that Dennis Pogarch Jr. uses in 'Out of the Shadows'—one of five drabbles to share a name with this anthology, including a trio of different drabbles by the same author, Joe Graciano—I'll wrap up with comments about the book as a whole because, surprisingly, there's almost nothing here except a hundred drabbles of a hundred words each, something that seems stranger still every time I think about it.

There is a brief introduction by Danni Winn but it's a very brief introduction. She does highlight the charity that will receive the proceeds from this book, but almost exactly in the same wording as the backcover blurb and without even a url we can copy to see more about them. So I'll add that here: it's mulligansmanor.com. I had to go to the site to realise why they're even named Mulligan's Manor; it's from the golfing term that's used to denote a "do-over" because that's what every member of their ever-expanding family gets. Oh, and they're in Tempe, Arizona.

Also absent from the book are a table of contents, so you can't leapfrog to a particular drabble or author, and a guide to the contributors, which I'd have liked even more, not just because I'm one of them but because I want to follow up on some of the others and have no obvious way to do so. Who are they? I don't know. What do they do when not on duty for a charity drabble anthology? Don't ask me. Where can I find their other work? No idea.

The other downside I'd call out is the lack of consistency in presentation, because these drabbles are probably presented exactly as they were provided to the editors, so don't look for any consistency in use of smart quotes, punctuation, first line capitalisation or italics, among others. On a more positive note, each drabble has its own page and it's well-presented in a font large enough that I can work from cover to cover without any need for my reading glasses.

At the end of the day, of course, it really doesn't matter what's in the book. You could realistically see this volume as a thank you perk for your donation to a worthy cause, a home for at-risk LGBTQ+ youth. Digital and print copies are available from Amazon and all proceeds go to Mulligan's Manor. Buy one for yourself then others for friends and family. Books are always great gifts, even if they have drabbles by me in them. ~~ Hal C F Astell