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The Shell Collector
A 25,000 word novella by New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden.
It's October in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where Richie Feehan was born and raised and has lived his whole life. He's a part-time lobsterman and full-time painter who sells his art at galleries in Rockport and Newburyport. Between the two jobs he makes enough money to get by, living in an in-law apartment in the family home owned by his brother Jim. Jim runs Feehan & Sons Funeral Home, a business started by their grandfather in 1921.
All in all, despite the tension with his brother, and despite the grumbling of his friends, whose business has suffered because of a lengthy red tide and a spectacularly bad overall fishing season, Richie enjoys his life very much. He's content, and believes that's pretty much all a man can ask from his life.
That is, until a horrible mystery begins to unfold in Gloucester.
Out lobstering, Richie sees something nightmarish in the surf one day, catches a bare glimpse of it beneath the surface. He doesn't dare speak of it for fear of what others might say-he doesn't want to become the town crazy. But he's having a hard time sleeping at night, and several days later, while out hauling in his traps for the winter, Richie finds one of them stuck on something. When he finally hauls it up, there's a corpse attached, a corpse that has been eaten at by sea creatures, including something large . . . the corpse of Greta Wagner, a woman who had been waked at Feehan & Sons two weeks earlier and buried a couple of days later.
Someone stole her corpse from the ground.
And her grave won't be the only one disturbed.
It's October in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where Richie Feehan was born and raised and has lived his whole life. He's a part-time lobsterman and full-time painter who sells his art at galleries in Rockport and Newburyport. Between the two jobs he makes enough money to get by, living in an in-law apartment in the family home owned by his brother Jim. Jim runs Feehan & Sons Funeral Home, a business started by their grandfather in 1921.
All in all, despite the tension with his brother, and despite the grumbling of his friends, whose business has suffered because of a lengthy red tide and a spectacularly bad overall fishing season, Richie enjoys his life very much. He's content, and believes that's pretty much all a man can ask from his life.
That is, until a horrible mystery begins to unfold in Gloucester.
Out lobstering, Richie sees something nightmarish in the surf one day, catches a bare glimpse of it beneath the surface. He doesn't dare speak of it for fear of what others might say-he doesn't want to become the town crazy. But he's having a hard time sleeping at night, and several days later, while out hauling in his traps for the winter, Richie finds one of them stuck on something. When he finally hauls it up, there's a corpse attached, a corpse that has been eaten at by sea creatures, including something large . . . the corpse of Greta Wagner, a woman who had been waked at Feehan & Sons two weeks earlier and buried a couple of days later.
Someone stole her corpse from the ground.
And her grave won't be the only one disturbed.
116 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
7 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Golden
800 books2,899 followersCHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of such novels as Road of Bones, Ararat, Snowblind, Of Saints and Shadows, and Red Hands. With Mike Mignola, he is the co-creator of the Outerverse comic book universe, including such series as Baltimore, Joe Golem: Occult Detective, and Lady Baltimore. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies Seize the Night, Dark Cities, and The New Dead, among others, and he has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. Golden co-hosts the podcast Defenders Dialogue with horror author Brian Keene. In 2015 he founded the popular Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Festival. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His work has been nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the Eisner Award, and multiple Shirley Jackson Awards. For the Bram Stoker Awards, Golden has been nominated ten times in eight different categories. His original novels have been published in more than fifteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 8, 2014
This one was a disappointment on so many levels. "The Shell Collector" started off strong with great character development and a haunting scene on a boat where the protagonist first encounters the Shell Collector. The story just unravels from there.
The emotions in the tale fell flat, the conclusions drawn seemed to miss a logical connection somewhere and the ending pulled up way short.
I am a fan of the novella in the horror genre and feel that in a lot of cases the length of a novella better allows an author to convey ideas than would a short story or a full-length novel. This was not one of those times.
If Golden had tackled the last half of the novella with the same zeal he attacked the first half and had exploited the characters and the frightening scene he set up on the boat, this could have been a strong story. As it is, not so much.
2 STARS
The emotions in the tale fell flat, the conclusions drawn seemed to miss a logical connection somewhere and the ending pulled up way short.
I am a fan of the novella in the horror genre and feel that in a lot of cases the length of a novella better allows an author to convey ideas than would a short story or a full-length novel. This was not one of those times.
If Golden had tackled the last half of the novella with the same zeal he attacked the first half and had exploited the characters and the frightening scene he set up on the boat, this could have been a strong story. As it is, not so much.
2 STARS
December 13, 2012
Golden is a good writer and as monster romps go, this is ok, but this novella just doesn't deliver much. No build up of suspense. I was hoping for a good historical legend of a sea monster and it just didn't happen. We are told superficial bits about the creature but get none of its history or origin, very little in the way of action sequences or scares, and then it just ends.
November 24, 2014
Richie Feehan, a part-time lobsterman and full-time house painter, has a disturbing experience one morning, while he is out lobstering. There is some thing... strange that is weighing down one of his lobster traps. At first Richie thinks it is just a collection of shells and sediment that has somehow become clotted to the bottom of the trap. But then he notices that the strange looking "clot" of shells and sediment has eyes that are staring up at him from beneath the cold and dark ocean water.
If that weren't unsettling enough, a few days later, while painting a beachfront house, Richie witnesses a lobsterman bringing some partial human remains ashore; a severed head that has somehow wound up inside of one of the man's lobster traps. Richie then learns that the head once belonged to a woman named Greta Wagner, who had recently been waked at the funeral home owned and operated by Richie's somewhat estranged brother, Jim. Richie also discovers that Greta Wagner's body isn't the first corpse to have gone missing from his brother's funeral home.
Over the years I have heard (more often than not, on Mark Justice's Pod of Horror podcast) a few horror writers praising the novella format. They believe that the novella, a story longer than your average short story, but shorter than your average novel, suits the telling of a horror tale, perfectly. That the novella format allows enough storytelling space for a writer to maximize both the building of atmosphere and the development of character, while remaining short enough so that the tale's carefully constructed mood is not dragged past its breaking point.
It is an approach, they say, that gives a writer the ability to avoid narrative dead zones. Those troublesome passages that oft times can (and do) create gaps between the "scare sequences" and can make long form horror story narratives feel somewhat cyclical or uneven, at best, or out and out fragmented or disjointed, at worst.
I think that Christopher Golden's atmospheric and tense novella, The Shell Collector, serves as a wonderful argument for the inherent superiority of the novella length horror story. Golden's tale is tightly focused, but never feels constrained. It moves at a brisk clip, but never feels rushed. Best of all, it is filled with deliciously disturbing surprises, unexpected plot twists, and populated with well developed characters that both sound and behave like real people, and not characters in some contrived or hokey monster story.
Which is precisely what I thought The Shell Collector was going to be; some half-baked homage to Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man. But it wasn't. The Shell Collector turned out to be an intelligent and well crafted horror story that manages to invoke Lovecraft's well known dread of the mysterious sea, using it as a springboard to do something original and unique, instead of just ripping it off.
If that weren't unsettling enough, a few days later, while painting a beachfront house, Richie witnesses a lobsterman bringing some partial human remains ashore; a severed head that has somehow wound up inside of one of the man's lobster traps. Richie then learns that the head once belonged to a woman named Greta Wagner, who had recently been waked at the funeral home owned and operated by Richie's somewhat estranged brother, Jim. Richie also discovers that Greta Wagner's body isn't the first corpse to have gone missing from his brother's funeral home.
Over the years I have heard (more often than not, on Mark Justice's Pod of Horror podcast) a few horror writers praising the novella format. They believe that the novella, a story longer than your average short story, but shorter than your average novel, suits the telling of a horror tale, perfectly. That the novella format allows enough storytelling space for a writer to maximize both the building of atmosphere and the development of character, while remaining short enough so that the tale's carefully constructed mood is not dragged past its breaking point.
It is an approach, they say, that gives a writer the ability to avoid narrative dead zones. Those troublesome passages that oft times can (and do) create gaps between the "scare sequences" and can make long form horror story narratives feel somewhat cyclical or uneven, at best, or out and out fragmented or disjointed, at worst.
I think that Christopher Golden's atmospheric and tense novella, The Shell Collector, serves as a wonderful argument for the inherent superiority of the novella length horror story. Golden's tale is tightly focused, but never feels constrained. It moves at a brisk clip, but never feels rushed. Best of all, it is filled with deliciously disturbing surprises, unexpected plot twists, and populated with well developed characters that both sound and behave like real people, and not characters in some contrived or hokey monster story.
Which is precisely what I thought The Shell Collector was going to be; some half-baked homage to Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth and Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man. But it wasn't. The Shell Collector turned out to be an intelligent and well crafted horror story that manages to invoke Lovecraft's well known dread of the mysterious sea, using it as a springboard to do something original and unique, instead of just ripping it off.
November 3, 2019
Unfortunately, this was an entirely pointless read. It consisted of useless details about painting and lobster fishing until the story picked up... on the last two pages.
The plot was virtually non existent. The characters were flat. And the writing was amateur at best.
What bothers me most is that if any unknown author submitted this manuscript to be published, it would almost surely be rejected on arrival. But since the name that belongs to this is Christopher Golden, it's somehow okay.
In fact, the prose was so atrocious, it makes me wonder if it was even proofread before it was published. I honestly expected so much more from Christopher Golden.
Only pick up this book if you are a die hard Golden fan, or a Cemetery Dance fan. If you're just a casual reader, don't waste your time (or your money) there is really not much of a story to be found here.
The plot was virtually non existent. The characters were flat. And the writing was amateur at best.
What bothers me most is that if any unknown author submitted this manuscript to be published, it would almost surely be rejected on arrival. But since the name that belongs to this is Christopher Golden, it's somehow okay.
In fact, the prose was so atrocious, it makes me wonder if it was even proofread before it was published. I honestly expected so much more from Christopher Golden.
Only pick up this book if you are a die hard Golden fan, or a Cemetery Dance fan. If you're just a casual reader, don't waste your time (or your money) there is really not much of a story to be found here.
June 5, 2015
I read one of Golden's novels a couple of years back and thought it was pretty good, but I had difficulty getting much of anything out of this one.
Richie is a part-time Massachusetts lobsterman and most-of-the-time house painter (not fine-art painter, as the blurb states). One day as he tries to pull up a lobster pot he discovers something with nasty eyes staring up at him. Soon he finds out that recently deceased locals are being dug up from their graves. Then he witnesses two local cops being horridly slaughtered by the shell-covered monster that the old folk of the community can remember their grandpaws talking about. And then . . .
Well, that's about it.
Richie is a part-time Massachusetts lobsterman and most-of-the-time house painter (not fine-art painter, as the blurb states). One day as he tries to pull up a lobster pot he discovers something with nasty eyes staring up at him. Soon he finds out that recently deceased locals are being dug up from their graves. Then he witnesses two local cops being horridly slaughtered by the shell-covered monster that the old folk of the community can remember their grandpaws talking about. And then . . .
Well, that's about it.
February 19, 2013
I first heard of Christopher Golden through Tim Lebbon and the books they wrote together. I am so glad I did. This book is a quick and fun read with some great moments in it. It reminded me of the old EC Comics or Creepy comics I used to read years ago. Great read.
May 20, 2013
It comes in with the tide
and the heavy rains.
Stealing the bodies of the closest
or those in graves.
The Shell Collector rises
and when the water does fall.
It'll be like it was never,
here at all.
by Nikki
2.5 Stars
A quick creature feature read that could have been better.
and the heavy rains.
Stealing the bodies of the closest
or those in graves.
The Shell Collector rises
and when the water does fall.
It'll be like it was never,
here at all.
by Nikki
2.5 Stars
A quick creature feature read that could have been better.
April 20, 2013
Richie Feehan was born and raised in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Richie was a painter by trade but like to keep up the tradition of being a lobster man. This was something that his grandfather and his father had also done. One day Richie was out in his boat checking on the lobster traps. Richie pulled with all his might to get this trap up where he could see what was in it. He tried again to pull that traps up but it only moved a few inches. He finally could see into the trap. At the bottom of the lobster trap were all kinds of shells. Richie did not realize that there were a pair green orbs looking back at him. The next trap that Richie pulled up was empty and so were the rest. Richie was headed to the Forecast for a couple of beers. Richie had know just about everybody in the bar. He wanted to tell somebody about his catch but he was not sure if they would believe him or not.Some of the old timers gave him a look, like they knew what he was talking about. Richie brother Jim ran The Feehan and Sons Funeral Home. Jim has a way of making Richie feel small. Richie was painting the Penn's house when he noticed the Icky Belly racing for the beach. The boat was heading right for the shore and was not stopping. Richie climb off the ladder and headed down to the beach. The boat belonged to Chet Bronson. One of his workers climb out of the boat carrying a lobster trap. Richie did not have clear view of what was in the trap but he knew it was not a lobster. The cops took the lobster trap an race to their vehicle. It was a head that was in the trap. The head belong to Greta Wagner. They had found the remains of her last week. She had been waked and Feehan and Sons and was intact at that time. Greta Wagner was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery. Somebody or thing had dug up her body. Richie jump in to his van and started driving. Not realizing where he was going, he end up at the Oak Grove Cemetery. Richie was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what it takes.
November 30, 2012
honestly, I didn't expect much from this book when I picked it up. I followed a retweet from Joe Hill, it was free, figured I'd give it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised with a very good tale. it's a very quick read and I think the ending was a bit hurried (many questions are left unanswered), but everything else about the story is very solid. I've recommended it to several people so far; if you get a chance grab it. before the end of today, if you can (it's no longer free after today, I think).
October 4, 2014
The book started out well, but the characters fell flat and the ending was abrupt. The characters were one dimensional, there was nothing to make me feel or care what happened to anyone, including the main character. The story never delves into what the creature is or even much history regarding the monster, overall I'd give the book a 2.5.
October 8, 2014
Seriously creepy? This book is a great read despite some errors that should have been caught during the editing process. It might make you rethink that idea of moving to a small town on the coast though. My advice would be to avoid reading this at the beach, and choose a vacation in the mountains or something.
October 28, 2014
A disappointing story, with a cool premise and a great beginning that kind of 'flounder'ed towards the end where the characters kind of fell apart and the explanation of the monster was underwhelming and then an ending that just felt cliche. Still going to give Golden a few more shots, but I think he might be better with a longer medium than a novella.
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October 26, 2014A good book...
Scary. Takes you on roller coaster ride from the very start. It is a frightening ride, a teeth grinding in the face of evil kind of ride... I couldn't put the book down!! I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a proper scare!!!
Scary. Takes you on roller coaster ride from the very start. It is a frightening ride, a teeth grinding in the face of evil kind of ride... I couldn't put the book down!! I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a proper scare!!!
August 30, 2013
a fun and quick read (read it in one day) that flows nicely and enjoyed every minute...
May 26, 2015
A canny little horror novella that doesn't pack the punches. Nothing less than I've come to expect from this author
July 8, 2024
A fun little read. Probably better in the YA section.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews