This pitch-dark story leaves a hell of a brutal mark and stays with you long after you turn that last page. Scanlines is a heavy and haunting coming-of-age story set in the late 90's with Stranger Things vibes throughout. But instead of finding Elven this group of friends find a cursed video that contains a vengeful ghost. Not for the faint of heart. Highly recommended.

Ordinary People meets The RingThe latest novella from Todd Keisling tackles a lot of sensitive real-world issues and, as a result, it can be a difficult and challenging read at times. The melding of sinister supernatural terror with all too real subject matters is deftly handled, making an already distressing subject matter all the more disturbing. Add in some strong characters and a unique non-linear telling, bookended with a powerful and heartfelt Introduction and Afterword, and the result is

January 22, 1987. American politician R. Budd Dwyer holds a press conference the day before his sentencing after his conviction for accepting a bribe. While maintaining his innocence, he pulls a gun, puts it in his mouth and shoots himself on national television.If you haven’t seen this clip, you can find it here:www.dontbesogullible.com/012287/yousickoNow, I know what you are thinking. Drama queen, right?This real-life event was the inspiration for this story. Like the three teens in this story...

I rarely read a book in one sitting but I just ignored all my responsibilities for a couple hours so I could binge this.Scanlines runs a little over 100 pages and it'll rattle you. I'll be thinking about this book for a long time.

3.5 starsWell written but I expected much more. My mind wasn’t blown.

Scanlines really packs a punch in its 100 or so pages. It’s a dark, brutal, gripping, and haunting novella by the same author as Devil’s Creek, which was one of my favorite horror books of 2020. So far Scanlines is one of my favorite novellas of 2021!I picked up Scanlines on a whim and I’m so glad I did. It’s a sort of coming of age story meets found footage horror, as well as a story about mental health and ghosts that was partially based on a real recording. I happen to have actually seen the

I loved this book. It was dark and scary. The CoverArt is horrific. But I loved it. It’s a story about depression, friendship and ghosts. And I felt better and less depressed after reading it.Depression is sometimes called The Black Dog and I never liked that. Dogs represent unconditional love and companionship. I like Todd Keisling’s metaphor better. Depression is a haunting or a ghost. Always following you, appearing when you least expect it. It will be on the face of your friend, your family

SCANLINES should be packaged with a "trigger warning, " yet I'm not sure what such warning should say. Given the gruesome nature of the video in question--in a sense, found footage, as it was received inadvertently--one might say a warning of gore was needed. But I think the nature of the video scared me not nearly as much as the consequences to all the viewers, particularly the three seventeen-year-old boys and their female classmate.I felt I was not reading alone: bizarrely, as the story unfol...

This review was originally published in an issue of SCREAM MagazineYou’re not going to hear me say this too often because it’s pretty rare for a book to really scare me enough to lose sleep or be afraid to walk around in my house after dark, so listen carefully:This book scared me.SCANLINES is the story of some horny teenage boys tooling around on dial-up internet for some free, pirated porn when they run across an unusual video. After the boys watch it, their lives are forever altered; haunted....

People like me. The thought drove home this harsh reality of Stauford's sons and daughters. Most of the people here were born with nothing, lived with little, and died with even less. Tiny blips in human history, offering nothing to the species except a chiseled marker saying "I was here for a time. Now I'm not."Lurking under this simple premise of a technological haunting is a novella about melancholy, grief, aimless small-town youth, and the true misery of existing in the modern world. Keislin...

A VHS tape of a congressman, accused of corruption, killing himself in front of an audience is circulating urban legend chat rooms, and the rumor is that whoever watches will eventually commit suicide themselves. A group of friends come across the tape by mistake and so the story begins. This short book starts with an author’s note which is warning from the author and then an introduction from the publisher that gives the background to the story; the real suicide of Budd Dwyer (the allegedly cor...

My review of SCANLINES can be found at High Fever Books.The roots of Scanlines, a signed and numbered limited edition chapbook publishing in mid-March from Dim Shores, can be found R. Budd Dwyer, the 30th Treasurer of Pennsylvania who, on January 22, 1987, called a news conference and surprised reporters and home viewers by killing himself live on-air. In Todd Keisling's version of events, it's the suicide of Congressman Benjamin Hardy III that haunts a group of teenagers, and takes on an urban

Heavy content. This was a dark coming of age story, with friendship, love, curiosity, death and suicide.

This was SO good...absolutely loved it. Very dark...very creepy...did not want to put it down. These shorter, horror novellas are really hitting me lately and the ones that are well written (like this one) make a much more powerful impact than many of the full length novels I've been reading. I highly recommend this unless you are sensitive to stories about depression and/or suicide because this story definitely goes to some dark places. But...wow...it was amazing.

Scanlines is the latest by Todd Keisling, and I have to start off by saying. Buy this book, read the review after, but buy this book.With that out of the way, Scanlines is the story of Robby and his friends who brave the sloth like speeds of the early internet days in hopes of watching some porn. What they didn’t expect was to run into a tape that made “faces of death” look like a children’s show. The video has stuck with the boys, and now the question must be asked, is there any escape?This is

A very dark coming of age story that deals with the haunting reality of depression and the looming threat of its consequences. At once an indelible horror story and a study of adolescents in a current of despair, this story will drag you kicking and screaming to its shorelines without an anchor. Unnerving and impressive.

This book is hauntingly well written, although it is short it sinks its teeth in deep and is the kind of story that will stick with you long after you've finished the last page.

Dark and heavy, this book is excellent. I never tried to find the real video that this book is based on. But I thought about it. You have to be careful what you put in your own head. Some things will stay and haunt you forever.

Full review to come

I remember getting our first dial up modem in 1994. I remember building my first PC in 1995. I remember my friend's older brother explaining ICQ to me in 1996.I remember going to the grocery store each month to beg my Mom to pick up the issue of PC Gamer so I could download demo games in a UI narrated by Coconut Monkey. I remember my first visit with 2 friends to Rotten.com in 1998. and I remember when I saw the Budd Dwyer tape thanks to a faulty Kazaa download in 1999. SCANLINES hit home for me...