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Reviewed by Romuald Dzemo for Readers' Favorite
Addendum is the second book in the Astral Alignment series by Randall Sharpe, an imaginative blend of horror and fantasy, delivering interconnected tales and characters fighting cosmic entities across the haunted landscapes of America. “Whispering Lake” follows goth teen Charon and her friend, Annie, as they explore the cursed waters of Minnesota to unveil undine spirits and a government conspiracy linked to the Delta Freya. In “The Passenger,” rideshare driver Mallory goes through a night of violence and paranoia as she drives Timothy Ruger, a pastor who believes he hosts an alien parasite. In “Magnum Opus,” Mercer Fields travels to his family estate in Oregon to dismantle a satanic suicide cult, but can he destroy the occult codex his parents died to create? In other stories, Clover and his sister, Crystal, are plunged into the Montana wilderness, where they are pulled into astral warfare involving biomechanical horrors. Such are the stories in this anthology.
The collection fascinated me in the way it mixes eldritch horror with Gen Z digital culture and economic anxiety. Randall Sharpe is a skilled storyteller who employs rapid-fire prose laced with internet slang, humor, and body horror to create a tone that is irreverent and terrifying. I loved how well the overarching themes of queerness and repression (especially in Anna’s harrowing arc) and the physical and astral planes are explored in Addendum. While the things the characters fight against are not ordinary, these characters are relatable and genuinely flawed, pulled from working-class young adults struggling with normal issues like family, trauma, sexuality, and debt. The setting features a variety of landscapes, including the Minneapolis suburbs, the backwoods of Oregon, and the highways of Texas. The author infuses each story with a kind of cosmic dread and realism that enticed me, and each short story balanced a tight plot with excellent storytelling.