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REVIEWS
"Readers of his first collection The Bleeding Horse will be familiar with [Showers's] technique of slowly building atmosphere by an apparent documentary method. His style is clear and pure, carrying weight and conviction by the absence of ostentatious flourishes . . . Showers works on his readers by creating an illusion of cool objectivity, so that when he delivers his final enigmatic denouement, it is genuinely troubling."
-Reggie Oliver, Wormwood 17
"This delightful book is not for those seeking gore and graphic horror, but for all the readers who love good, subtly unnerving dark fiction. We are sick and tired of grandguignolesque horror stories told in a nervous, disjointed writing style. Try Old Albert and you’ll discover that, fortunately, well written, accomplished tales are still around."
-Mario Guslandi, Horror World
"The effect of Showers' incredibly well-crafted prose is to give the tales he tells a ring of truth that is undeniably and very enjoyably compelling . . . clearly an author of great talent, with an ability not just to describe reality, but create it out of whole cloth."
-Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column
"This is a fine example of 'no smoke without fire' school of ghost story writing, one where no single item is conclusive but the accumulation of circumstantial evidence is overwhelming . . . And while the work as a whole is admirably restrained, there are moments of violence . . . that remind you this ghost has claws."
-Peter Tennant, Black Static 26
" . . . what Brian Showers does with his fairly cosy, detached style is lull you into a false sense of security before delivering a series of rather disturbing surprises, or perhaps they ought to be termed shocking discoveries?"
-David Longhorn, Supernatural Tales 20
"Old Albert isn't just a subtly powerful work of supernatural fiction, it's also a work that demonstrates the profound ability Mr. Showers has to infuse a seemingly nondescript locale with a sense of history, with a sense of place in the flow of time. I have not come across any other writer working today who is writing quite like Brian J. Showers is. "
-Speculative Fiction Junkie
"For a village to be part of city is like a phenomenon I can’t quite define in literature. Author and readership? . . . In any event we now have location, location, location . . . as we follow Larkhill House through the late 19th century to the early twentieth, involving a school, a 'sexy' theosophical society, a school again – and a discovery, hidden in this text’s reported intertext, that resonates, for me, like indefinable foreboding Aickmanery . . . Meanwhile, I also sense an overweening force - that henry-fielding-esque intruder who may be the author or who may not be the author but masquerading as him."
-Des Lewis, Real-time Reviews
"Beautifully written, with an authentic feel for the times throughout, Old Albert is a vital addition to anyone’s collection of supernatural tales and the macabre."
-John Kenny, ...You're Reading
"Showers weaves his tales so well that it’s difficult to tell what’s fact and what’s fiction. The dates and quotes add an unnerving gravity, while the fact that it’s Ireland makes it practically true . . . The story itself and the way it’s written is so wonderfully old school, as if the whole thing was from the time and just discovered in some archive."
-Sarah Elliot, Geek Girl on the Street
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