The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse

Name: The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse
Price: 14.99 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9798349421655

✍️ Tom Coombe

Reader Score

4.5

(1 review)

$14.99

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🏛 Calm Tomb 📅 2025 🌐 English 📔 Paperback ISBN: 9798349421655

📚 This Book in Collections

🔪 Slasher Books & Final Girl Novels

📝 Description: The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse

A teenage horror fan searches for the origins of a too-real, homemade slasher film. Two siblings inherit a statue that draws worshippers from around the world. A struggling restaurant's survival depends on a mythical beast. And in the title story, a nationwide phenomenon of sinister clown sightings portends the arrival of something far more catastrophic. The 17 stories in Tom Coombe's debut collection take place on the edge of disaster, where vampiric priests, evil statues and fitness cults are only harbingers of worse things to come.

💎 Our verdict on The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse

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🩸

Horror Reads editorial team

Horror desk

Tom Coombe's debut collection, The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse, finds its terror right on the edge of societal collapse, where everyday struggles bleed into surreal catastrophe. Across seventeen unsettling tales, the book builds a tense, modern atmosphere populated by teenage horror obsessives, unwitting inheritors of malevolent artifacts, and desperate restaurateurs catering to mythical beasts. Rather than leaning on jump scares, Coombe crafts a quiet, creeping dread rooted in the dread of what comes next, highlighted by a nationwide wave of sinister clown sightings that portend a deeper doom. It is an ideal pick for readers who enjoy atmospheric horror and grounded, slow-burn psychological unease that lingers long after the final page.

✓ EDITOR'S REVIEW

⭐ Reader reviews

The starting rating comes from the team Horror Reads —

Reader rating

4.5

Based on 1 reviews

Horror Reads editorial team

Tom Coombe's debut collection, The Clown King and Other Stories of the Pre-apocalypse, finds its terror right on the edge of societal collapse, where everyday struggles bleed into surreal catastrophe. Across seventeen unsettling tales, the book builds a tense, modern atmosphere populated by teenage horror obsessives, unwitting inheritors of malevolent artifacts, and desperate restaurateurs catering to mythical beasts. Rather than leaning on jump scares, Coombe crafts a quiet, creeping dread rooted in the dread of what comes next, highlighted by a nationwide wave of sinister clown sightings that portend a deeper doom. It is an ideal pick for readers who enjoy atmospheric horror and grounded, slow-burn psychological unease that lingers long after the final page.