September 1st saw the release of the first instalment in the Project Threshold, a new sci-fi horror series from Craig Crawford. October 6th sees the release of part two – Team Talise. Part three is due for release in November, leading up to the finale in December.
Our world exists alongside others in a multiverse. Occasionally creatures and entities slip into ours from other dimensions. In four sets of stories, Project Threshold is a novel length serial following four teams of special agents who protect humanity from entities and monsters who threaten us.
Project Threshold starts with Harris Berger leading his team into a cavern, looking for a lost hiker. This particular cave is home of some unknown civilization with tech far beyond ours. Berger treads carefully, not wanting to end up like others who ventured inside. It’s the first of five adventures for he and his team. It’s easy to die and happens quick, even for veterans. Death is not the only price soldiers in the Direct Contact Teams face. Running into some of the horrors erodes your sanity, and the price of keeping the biggest secret in the world takes its toll.
Team Berger faces an unknown advanced civilization, mimics loose on the streets of Chicago killing homeless people, dealing with the aftermath of witnessing awful things, mermaids in the Midwest and an apartment where people start committing suicide for no reason.
Talise Randall leads Division-2, putting her life on the line to protect the rest of her team. Growing up with dark paranormal experiences of her own, when she learned of Project Threshold it was the perfect fit. Talise works to protect against the kind of evil she and her brother endured as kids. Team Talise goes head to head with an unstoppable entity, an otherworldly jealous boyfriend, a haunted museum, a Victorian home with much more than a ghost, and her team discovers what happens to all those lost socks from people’s dryers.
Hannah Riker, leader of Division-A, scours the huge expanse of Alaska. Strange country, it has more activity than most places on Earth. The victim of a monster who killed her family, Riker eagerly joined Project Threshold to stop other horrors stepping into our world, but also to use Project Threshold’s resources to find and avenge herself on what slaughtered her parents. Riker and her team follows in the wake of beings dispensing justice marking their victims. They intervene on a resort where people disappear even during daylight, fend off a tribe of furry humanoids claiming ownership of a valley, and discover there might have been a civilization on Earth far older than we imagined.
Riker stumbles upon an ancient, unkillable entity bent on the destruction of humanity. She and her team are ambushed and it’s up to the rest of Project Threshold to rush in to save the entire world from extermination. Berger, Talise and an obscure 4th team head to Alaska to figure out what happened to Riker and what’s loose. They, along with all the rest of the organization, attempt to kill this threat. However, even Project Threshold doesn’t have the technology to destroy this thing whose sole purpose is to cleanse the Earth of humans.
Using psychic skills, their wits and all their training, Project Threshold manages to contain the entity, giving humanity another chance.
This week saw the release of a new audiobook… Six! Volume 2 is a wonderfully dark collection of short stories written by Mark Cassell and narrated by the excellent Simon Aitchison. You can find the book in all formats here.
And Mark has also released an excellent, illustrated book of horror writing prompts, ideal for both aspiring and seasoned authors. Full of brilliant story ideas and images, this is an incredibly useful tool for banishing the dreaded writer’s block! Available here.
