Phobiastories PHOBOPHOBIA - anthology by Dean M Drinkel
Phobiastories
PHOBOPHOBIA - anthology by Dean M Drinkel
Description:
The fear of open spaces manifests itself in KENOPHOBIA, a tale of the ultimate emptiness - the Great Void that awaits us all...the fear of beautiful women is fully justified in VENUSTROPHOBIA, a tale of futile defence against the Succubus... ...but beware: the cure may be worse... Denying yourself a place in Heaven is one way to avoid JESUSPHOBIA, but the only alternative means Hell to pay...a playwright fights his fear of the colour yellow by creating an unusual addition to his Dramatis Personae in XANTHOPHOBIA...a Witchfinder's fear of open water will only be relieved by imbibing one of two deathly fluids in AQUAPHOBIA...and a widower follows the age-old advice of turning to face your fear in QIQIRN, only to uncover the true nature of an Inuit dog spirit that carries the essence of cold terror from its ancient homeland into the realm of human grief... Open the pages. It is time to learn your A to Dread...
Authors include:
Dean M Drinkel, Emile-Louis Tomas Jouvet, Paul Kane, Marie O'Regan, Steven Savile, Adrian Chamberlin, GR Yeates, DM Youngquist, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Jonathan Green, Barbie Wilde
A sample of Phobias from PHOBOPHOBIA!
My story for PHOBOPHOBIA is about a man coming to terms about who he is and who he thinks he is. This is my first story in English.
When an ice sculptor becomes afraid of his art, it is up to his therapist to help him regain control. But what if his ultimate masterpiece is a thing that should never be finished?
"Symbols of Damnation" was born from two completely unrelated ideas coming together and making one rather dark and twisted little baby; my musing on how phobias often originate from childhood trauma, and my recollection of a seemingly conservative and strait-laced friend casually confessing to having once helped to set fire to a church.
My contribution to the Phobophobia anthology deals with Nosocomephobia: fear of hospitals. Not only is Derek, the main character, haunted by his fear, he is also plagued with mental illness. Dealing with them both is no easy feat, and when Derek ends up in the hospital he finds himself trapped in his own personal hell. Hope you enjoy the story!
Q is for Qiqirn is what happens when you agree to write a story about a phobia and let someone else choose your letter. There's no official Q phobia, so I had to dance sideways and think about what phobias represent: fear, loss of control, external forces and internal forces tearing into each other, human frailties in the face of a blind and savage universe. Qiqirn is the result...
The story for Sarmassophobia is something I had to think about for a long time before I wrote it. Dean assigned me the letter "S," and I didn't want to do something a person would expect. Something about spiders or snakes didn't appeal to me. So I started looking up Latin names for phobias. Sarmassophobia really stood out to me. It was something that I could relate to, as in my past, there were a few experiences like Steve Carell went though in "The Forty Year Old Virgin". So I took those fears, and gave them a really harsh twist. What could be worse for someone who suffers from this phobia, than to be forced into a situation like this?
A young boys birthday present begins a lifelong crippling fear of things that slink and crawl in the night. It isn't until he's much older that he decides, after a stern rebuttal from his tired mother to tackle his fear alone and without any help.
Everyone should have a fear of God and the characters in my story, a series of vignettes set in Paris, certainly seem too but are they being tricked by something altogether quite different?PHOBOPHOBIA
