At its best, Scott Nicolay's writing conjures the effortless and enviable atmosphere of great weird manga, and nowhere is that more true than in his Dim Shores chapbook after, which leavens the proceedings with a solid grounding in time and place, in this case the New Jersey town of Seaside Heights ("The Town That Fun Built") in the immediate aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Maybe I'm seeing connections where none exist, but the desolation of the book reminded me, at times, of Kazuo Umezu's The Dr...

Excellent new novella from Nicolay who almost overnight became a phenomenon in the modern weird genre. A story featuring a creepy sea monster (no spoiler as it is pictured right on the cover). From the description I wondered if it was our multi legged friend from his previous great story Do You Like To Look At Monsters paying a visit again.If it were purely a well executed monster story I would have rated it a solid 4 stars. And what elevates this into 5 star territory is the well depicted backd...

"Sandy had made a shambles of conventional cause and effect. Strange synchronicities, unexpected conjunctions...sorrows that could only be suffered in silence." There are some stories you read; you enjoy them, have positive things to say about them, memorize certain passages, and you may even read them again somewhere down the road. Then there are stories you experience. These stories touch you so deeply, personally, and profoundly that, once you finish them, they are forever etched in your mind...

An intense novella of survival; in the wake of a force of nature (hurricane Sandy), in the ever-present fear of an abusive spouse, and of the unknown in the form of a strange entity the storm blew in or left stranded in a small New Jersey coastal town. There is real terror and real horror here. Author Scott Nicolay delivers an intelligent, socially conscious story that you as much experience as read, the details are constructed so convincingly and the psychology rendered so realistically. This l...

Scott Nicolay does a good job subverting the conventional wisdom of "the devil you know" in this tense little book.

Survival becomes the strong suit in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, maybe by choice but the monsters always seem to return. Scott Nicolay writes a drama of dark nights, and an intense game of survival that only leads to a one word battle, What happens “after “?

A Prince in the Renaissance of the Weird Tale. A survival story of a battered housewife on the run to her Jersey home after hurricane Sandy and the unlikely (or otherworldly) occupant that inhabits it. Scott Nicolay takes a devastating time when Sandy hit the Northeastern United States and weaves a tale to make it seem like you are there in the aftermath. He throws in his "Weird Tale" magic and it will keep you up at night for days to come.

When I put down 'After', by Scott Nicolay, I was confused.I had read some previous fiction of his and was awestruck. So I was confused to why this felt like a story on loop. It is tense, weird and remarkable but, nonetheless, repetitive for such a slim volume. Then it struck me. It is the cycle of abuse. Those who return to have it happen to them again and again. This little space she traps herself in is her response to that abuse. She wants to fight but she corners herself and goes back to it e...

Scott Nicolay has long been hailed as one of the best writers working today, but "after" is just brilliant. Following an abused woman who returns to a seaside house ravaged by Hurricane Sandy only to find an incredibly strange *something* waiting for her, Nicolay's suspenseful and character-driven plot builds up to one of the most crushing endings in literature as a whole. Michael Bukowski's illustrations fit perfectly to this story and add to the bleak mood. It's kinda futile to even try and de...

A bleak, introspective story that subverts the usual monster tropes. Nicolay's prose really creeps up on you, immerses you in the flow of the protagonist's thoughts and memories and constant questions. It takes its time to build the tension to breaking point, and the ending is heartbreaking because it's so mundane and understated, at least in the context of the monster element. In another sense, it's extraordinary.Also, what an awesome cover by Michael Bukowski!

I believe this is the first time I ever purchased a limited edition book, and certainly the first time I have every done so directly from the author's hands. I'm very glad I did, and I'm convinced I should do it more. Nicolay's After is a masterful and immersive foray into the cognitive dissonance of PTSD, coping mechanisms, and the weird, playing out in the wake of the devastation of superstorm Sandy. The author takes us swiftly and deftly into that place where narrative unreliability makes a m...

With unprecedented swiftness, Nicolay has become one of the must-read authors in horror/weird/supernatural/whatever-you-call-it fiction, consciously setting out to create a new territory for a literature that has long been bound to past models."After" should solidify his already considerable reputation. A novella set in the immediate aftermath of Superstorm Sandy's devastating landfall in New Jersey, the twin poles of this world are loss and dread. A woman decides to ditch a FEMA bus back from t...

With nuances that smack a bit of Henry James, Nicolay's "After" is a beautiful examination of what it means to crumble under the immense weight of outside forces--both physically real and cosmically imagined. Set amid the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, Nicolay explores how sometimes the damage that comes after is nothing compared to the damage that has come before. I don't want to go into plot points because what you need to do is allow yourself to dip into this story and become irrevocably los...

How does one deal with a broken, abusive relationship that goes on and on, with no viable means of escape? For Colleen, ditching responsibility and heading out to inspect a post-Sandy seaside cottage she and her significant (shouldn’t that be detrimental?) other, Derrick, own, the break seems mandatory. It gives her time to contemplate strategies she’ll never embrace... The key to what Nicolay does as a writer is how he willfully gives in to every nuance as dictated by each tale. With “after,” w...

At no point in the story did I expect the horror that came with the ending. The story revolves around Colleen, woman who returns to her New Jersey home shortly after the destruction from Superstorm Sandy to assess damages. Once there, she decides to stay rather than go back to the abusive relationship she is currently in. Living without basic modern amenities beyond a roof over her head, trying to find sustenance to survive, a monster of WTF proportions, avoiding getting shot as a looter...there...