You Shall Never Know Security - 13 - Dark and original short stories

Aug 6, 2026

You Shall Never Know Security presents a collection of 13 dark short stories celebrated for their unsettling, cosmic dread and the way they peel back ordinary life to reveal regret, despair, fear, envy, and guilt. Reviews highlight vivid, elegant prose reminiscent of Lovecraft, strong character work, and a range of styles—from eerie and eldritch to macabrely humorous. Across accounts, the stories are praised for staying with readers, offering few comfortingly happy endings, and challenging perceptions of self and place in the universe.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages320

Reading Time8 h 13 min

AccessFree to download

Uncharacteristically Kind Words for J.R. Hamantaschen

Critical praise and descriptions of the collection

Themes, style, and reader impact

[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com) Uncharacteristically Kind Words for J.R.Hamantaschen As you are already reading (or at least considering) this collection, why not bludgeon you with praise for my first collection, You Shall Never Know Security? “The collection is aptly named-each story inspires a sickening feeling of danger …a twisted, uneasy, satisfying book.” –Kirkus Reviews “A cross between Lovecraft and Chuck Palahniuk, this book of short stories is as memorable as it is terrifying. The Palahniuk comparison doesn’t end with a name that’s impossible to spell – we haven’t been this horrified by a collection of short stories since Chuck’s own Haunted You Shall Never Know Security is a wonderful collection of short stories from a dark and original genre voice. That title – it’s a promise.” –Starbust Magazine “The term dark fiction has become a tad diluted by the onslaught of vampire, zombie and pseudo-horror novels that currently dot the literary landscape. However, in J.R. Hamantaschen’s You Shall Never Know Security, a collection of 13 short stories, dark fiction is back to what it was meant to be: a bloodcurdling jump into the gloomiest and most sinister corners of the human psyche. With an elegant and eloquent prose that brings to mind the work of Lovecraft, Hamantaschen repeatedly pulls away the thin cover or normalcy that’s usually thrown over our daily lives and unabashedly shows readers what lies beneath. Regret, despair, fear, envy and guilt are all here, and the stories in which they appear are the kind that tend to stick with readers after the reading is over.” –HP Lovecraft E-Zine “You Shall Never Know Security is aptly titled. Containing 13 tales, all are beautifully written, most are engrossing and there’s a vein of loss running throughout. Overall, the book is depressing but still compelling as hell because of Hamantaschen’s skill with words. As supernatural as the stories can get, there’s still a semblance of ‘real life’ found in each as sometimes there are just no happy endings. Sometimes the real world just sucks.” –HorrorTalk “Here is some boastful praise about this fellow author. My real goal is for you to check out my book. Why else do you think I listed the books I’ve written?” –Sycophantic other Author, Author of Some Other Fiction in the Same Genre “The language, in places, is evocative, almost elegiac …The stories are so varied in type and emphasis that it is difficult to describe them in a single line or two . . . in all of the above, the author delivers powerful, ugly images, using a battery of verbal pyrotechnics that make the stories demand to be read carefully. Buried in the razzle-dazzle language are clues to the intended meaning. If horror is your poison of choice, these will definitely fill the bill.” –Innsmouth Free Press “J.R. Hamantaschen’s stories tap into the cosmic hopelessness of life. His stories are horrific and terrifying, but really shake one’s idea of self and your place in the universe.” –HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast “The thirteen stories in You Shall Never Know Security are…strange. A character in one story uses the word surrealistic to describe a situation; it is equally appropriate as a description of the entire collection. Another character in another story borrows the oft-overused (although here appropriate) Lovecraftian word eldritch; and again, it resonates through every story—unearthly, weird, eerie.” –HellNotes “If you like your fiction unique and on the darker side, if you wonder what Robert Aickman would sound like had he written in the Now instead of the Then…your answer is here.” –ShockTotem “He has a remarkable grasp of exactly how instinctively predatory the human beast is and the lengths some are apt to go to conceal this fact beneath layers of comforting veneers. He is also a natural story teller, willing to dally at the realizations, the internal struggles to come to grips with the unthinkable, and the often les

FAQs

How many stories are included in You Shall Never Know Security?

The collection contains 13 short stories, repeatedly described across the reviews.

What themes and emotions dominate the stories?

Regret, despair, fear, envy, and guilt are emphasized, alongside cosmic hopelessness and unsettling psychological territory.

What style of writing is highlighted in the reviews?

Reviewers praise elegant, eloquent prose with vivid, sometimes almost elegiac imagery, likened to Lovecraft and noted for demanding careful reading.

Aug 6, 2026

Upload by Evangeline