Itโs summertime (or, well, soon enough)! Here in Croatia, that means a sweltering sun scorching away every drop of fluids in our bodies, coastal towns and islands drowning in the mass of tourists while the locals suffocate in high cost of everything, boats crowding the Adriatic sea, and the air smelling of oils and sunscreens.
If you havenโt noticed, I love summers! Genuinely. Itโs a time of vacation, for starters. And I love swimming. Nothing better than getting up (very) early in the morning and going to a small beach, only a few older people chilling there, before everyone else wakes up. Thereโs a certain peace in the sea, mind completely clear of all the usual noise. Thereโs also nothing scarier to me than being alone in the deep. Itโs the constant conundrum of my lifeโI adore the sea but I also have a heavy dose of dread toward it. And the Adriatic coast is almost completely safe from the usual suspectsโlike sharksโbut I still imagine all sorts of sea life, from gelatinous forms to tentacles to huge weird fish, getting me. Better chances are someone is going to hit me in the head with an oar or drive me over with a speeding boat or the bora will trash me over rocks, but itโs whatโs under the murky surface, in the darkness of the rocks and the seabed, where my imagination flares.
Naturally, thatโs why I love reading summer, vacation, and aquatic horror where all my complicated feelings regarding summertime can find some comfort.
If you want to be scared, disgusted, or intrigued while resting on the beach, hopefully hiding from the sun in natural shade (weโre not promoting sunbathing here, Iโm always covered even if Iโm in the shade), here are a few titles that I feel are the perfect stories to keep you company while the sea is slowly stretching before your eyes, hiding the secrets of the deep.
1. Worst Laid Plans: an Anthology of Vacation Horror โ edited by Samantha Kolesnik
Letโs start with the most obvious one. I read Worst Laid Plans as my vacation book two years ago and it was such a great read I mention it constantly to people. Itโs an anthology of short horror stories with the theme of summer vacations. Everything that could go wrong does go wrong, from amusement parks, road trips, conventions, hotels, beach vacations, and so on. The stories are varying from hilarious, dark, bloody, drenched in melancholy, and creepy, and some of the stories, like the one with the movie theater on an island with a strange movie, or Hailey Piperโs story about a father-daughter vacation dripping with unease, stayed with me.
2. Slice of Paradise: A Beach Vacation Horror โ edited by Ben Long and Andrew Robert
Another anthology of short horror stories with vacation as the theme. This is a fun book to read, especially while sweltering on the beach for full immersion. These stories are filled with flesh-eating sand, flesh-melting heat, nighttime dives, drowned kids, horrible rich tourists, and a whole lot of isolated islands.
3. They Drown Our Daughters by Katrina Monroe
The protagonist in They Drown Our Daughters didnโt come back to her small coastal town for a vacation, but because of the marital problems she had with her wife. So she picks up her young daughter and runs back to her childhood home to live with her mother for a time. Except, her mother believes thereโs something in the ocean that wants to hurt them, just like it did with the other women in their family, drowning them through generations. Small towns, dysfunctional families, secrets, cliffs, derelict lighthouses, discomfort, an eerie atmosphere, melancholy, and a monstrous ocean, all slowly build up the story of a matrilinear curse following one family in this gothic horror novel with aquatic dread.
4. Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
I feel like this is the one book that will show up on every recommendation list of aquatic horror novels. Or at least itโs one of the most popular ones. We follow a group of scientists that have to prove whether mermaids are real or not while working on the disappearance of a ship that left behind only footage of an apparent mermaid attack. This book has everything you would hope for from a book that wants to scare you with sea lifeโoceanic exploration, marine biology, lost ships, killer mermaids, a big cast of characters, all interesting, complex, and diverse, as well as very creepy and tension-filled action. This one is an especially good read if youโre on a boat or a cruise. If not, the beach will suffice.
5. Saltblood by T. C. Parker
Another book Iโm constantly recommending to people. This one is an interesting genre combination of aquatic, folk, and dystopian horror. And it all comes together nicely. In the future, people who committed the crime of inciting public rage (so, everyone whose tweets become viral, really), are imprisoned on an isolated Scottish island. Thereโs no communication with the outside world. No connection to the internet. And prisoners are starting to disappear. And even worse, thereโs something in the sea. Whatโs going on is a story of sapphic anger, social commentary, an anti-capitalist message, and a clash of modern world with folklore resulting in spilled blood.
6. Sea, Swallow Me by Craig Laurance Gidney
So, Iโm stretching it a bit with the inclusion of this collection of stories, but this is my list and I can do whatever I want. This collection of dark and melancholic stories isnโt only about threats from the sea, but the titular story is one with a tourist encountering an African sea god, which is what Iโm using as an excuse to rec this book. These stories are mostly dealing with heavy topics such as racism and slavery. It depicts what it means to be a Black queer man, and it talks about desire, guilt, and blame. The book is filled with nightmarish religious imagery, leaving a sense of discomfort in the reader. Hard book to read but rewarding.
7. As The Shore To The Tides, So Blood Calls To Blood, by Karlo Yeager Rodriguez
Another one of โmaybe stretching it too farโ titles, this one is a dark fantasy novelette filled with an ocean of blood. This is a mythic tale of betrayal, brotherhood, apocalypse, and religious cults. One brother wants to awaken the sleeping god under the ocean, and the other is not so keen to bring about the apocalypse and is trying to run away from it. So short, but epic, visual, and visceral. The story was originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #301, and you can read it for free.
Honorary mention:
8. It Eats Us From the Inside by me
Now for the self-promo part, I should mention I love writing about threats from the sea and the ghostly small towns in Croatia surviving only on tourism. It Eats Us From the Inside is an aquatic, eco, scifi horror novella set in a Northern Adriatic town where a mysterious illness shows up from the deep and slowly starts eating away at the inhabitants. One grumpy daughter comes back with her wife to see her sick, grumpy father before he dies, and possibly learns the truth of wtf is happening to the town and whatโs in the sea thatโs making people sick. A quiet and claustrophobic tale of aquatic dread, Slavic folklore, and estranged families. This tale is very bittersweet and gross, and Iโve heard that olfactory descriptions were so on point that some people had trouble with seafood afterwards. You can also check out my reading of an excerpt for Glasgowโs Worldcon 2024 Indie Reading Library at their YouTube channel.
9. But I also have an aquatic horror novelette in Croatian, Probudi me kad stignemo, about a creepy trip on an early morning ferry, and a gay couple who are dreading going back to their real-life responsibilities after the vacation. You can read it for free with the other stories by downloading the third issue of Morina kutija or directly at the site.
10. Bonus for readers of Croatian and similar languages: Pasta Italiana al mare, an anthology of short speculative fiction stories, published by Udruga F&ST.
Croatia has a lot of publications for speculative fiction and this is one of the anthologies published by the conrunners of the FantaSTikon, a scifi convention held in Split. FantaST always has two different themes, and for this one (the second issue), the themes were โseaโ and โItalyโ, meaning there are a few aquatic horror stories there too. If you read Croatian, check it out, also available for free download at their site.
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