PRODUCER NIK VS. TALES FROM RAMNON

It’s been a while since Nik allowed Jae Mazer to take him on a guided tour of Fort Ramnon, but it’s taken him that long to recover from the trip. These are his thoughts.

What happens when we die? Where do we go? What becomes of our meat, our mind, our soul? And what happens if we get stuck somewhere in between, tangled in the thin veil between life and the afterlife? And what if sludge from this afterlife seeps into contemporary society?

Fort Ramon is a place for those not quite alive and not quite dead. A holding place for impossible creatures, wayward human souls, and dark things that belong nowhere else.

Tales From Ramnon is a collection of four folk horror stories, each set in a unique culture, with different a different folk creature, and a devastating social issue. Within these pages, you will experience the dark world of suicide, domestic abuse, addiction, and death. You will also hear the whoosh of feathers slicing the wind, the crash of antlers in the forest, the keening of sorrow, and the ravenous slurping of huger.

Welcome to Ramnon.

Title: Tales From Ramnon

Author: Jae Mazer

Genre: Horror

Pages: 638

Format: Hardcover / Paperback / eBook

To refer to what Jae Mazer has assembled here as a short story collection would be wildly inaccurate. These are not short stories, and if you’re looking for bite-size morsels, you’ll really only one story in this book that falls below novella-length. If you’re looking for substance, though, she has got you covered. And I’m not just talking about the size of the stories contained within this book. It’s the content within those stories that carries weight and substance.

At its heart, the theme that immediately appears to be underlying this collection is one of the desire to escape. Whether it’s escape from the pain of life, an abusive relationship, the cycle of addiction, guilt, or sickness, each of these stories is about someone desperately trying to run away from something. Often, it seems the thing they’re struggling to escape from is themselves, as is the case for many of us. They may believe they’re running from some supernatural force or entity that has revealed itself to them, but in the end, that’s never the case.

It’s not just about escape, though.

Just as interwoven into these stories is the theme of finding acceptance where it seems not only unlikely, but virtually impossible. Sure, there’s a degree of acceptance to be found in the strange and often terrifying creatures that populate the borderland of Ramnon, but it’s more than that. It’s about self-acceptance. It’s about facing the fear, turning toward the thing from which one is running, and embracing the truth. Sometimes that truth is a painful one.

It’s also about grief, and the challenges we face in processing it.

There are mythical creatures and horrors from various folklore traditions walking through these pages just as they walk the streets of Ramnon, and Mazer’s take on each of the entities she chooses to focus on is interesting and fleshed out well.

The mythology she’s developed for Fort Ramnon is no less well-thought-out and intricate, the fictional realm taking on a character of its own as the reader explores the glimpses they receive of the place beyond the veil.

But it’s the characters that really got me invested. Her characters are as flawed and three-dimensional as you or I. So much so, that it’s almost painful to follow them as they make their way through the trials and terrors that await them in these pages.

If you’re a reader who likes to think about and analyze the things you’re reading, this is a fantastic book. Chances are that you’ll still enjoy it, even if you’re not that kind of reader—but it strikes me as something that will hold more value to those who actively consider the things they’re reading.

Nikolas P. Robinson is an avid consumer of books, movies, and television, especially where horror, science fiction, and fantasy are concerned. When he isn’t consuming media, he’s creating it as an author, photographer, videographer, and news producer in Portland, Oregon.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.