09/28/2025 Month-End Wrap-Up
- Candace Nola
- Sep 28
- 5 min read
Hello from Uncomfortably Dark. It's been a long day and a long week! Spent today at the Monroeville Mall for Malloween, promoting our authors and Uncomfortably Dark. Met some great folks, made some awesome sales, and enjoyed catching up with many of our local vendor friends and some author friends.
Let's get to the updates before it gets any later!
REVIEW TEAM STATS FOR SEPTEMBER 2025
Books Read: 52
Pages Read: 9,300
ARCs: 3
Year To Date
Books read: 404
Pages Read: 76, 846
ARCs Read: 35
Our review team has had an amazing year so far, and every month has only gotten better. We've seen some changes, added some new team members, brought back the Haunted Location blog, added a horror game reviewer, added movie reviews, and award list reviews. They have all done a phenomenal job and UD would not exist as it does today, without all of them!
Huge Thanks to Christina, Ali, Rachel, Donna, Warn, Besu, Christopher, and Sonja, for everything you do!
FOR THE GAMERS
Silent Still
Reviewed by Besu Tadesse
Silent Still is a first-person psychological horror game developed and published by Solitary Studios and released in September 2024. In the game, you are Keneth, an average working man that is trying to escape the ghoulish embodiment of his sleep paralysis. The game spans three chapters, each traversing through his apartment or office building with a different focus on the effects of that paralysis on his body and his psyche.
I’ll be frank, the game is disappointing in a heartbreaking way. The graphics feel thin, engaging with the environment is basic at best, controls languish even when Keneth should be running, and the entire experience felt jarring and disjointed. Many of the elements set up for interaction, like doors and switches, can only be triggered when the game wants you to progress, rather than in the natural course of exploration. When “battling” the demon, it isn’t clear on what you need to do to fend it off other than waving the mouse around wildly until the background code is told to move forward. In a game like this, the tension that comes with a constrained or claustrophobic environment could lend itself well to a game like this, but it doesn’t feel intentional. It feels incomplete and untested.
What truly makes it heartbreaking is that there are some really great ideas. I found Keneth’s ramblings on his work computer about the idea of a literal demon stalking him for weeks to be really effective at establishing your character’s state of mind. You can really see his decline over that time with only pictures of goofy dogs to help him relax. Breaking up the gameplay into the two distinct locations made for some good contrast. And the scenes with the demon itself while Keneth was trapped in paralysis mode might be some of the most genuinely tense scenes I have ever experienced in all my years as a gamer. Those scenes, in particular, were truly nightmarish, and the ending was an extremely bold choice. But the entire thing was hamstrung by its limitation that a more adept developer could have pulled off beautifully.
Silent Still is available on PC (Steam) and consoles, as well as its sequel Silent Still 2. It costs $4 USD, so if you read this and are still brave enough to try it, give it a go.
About Besu Tadesse:
Besu Tadesse is a horror author and musician. He is best known for his first novella, The Ghosts of Poplar Valley, as well as contributions to various short story collections and anthologies. He enjoys reading, performing, gaming, watching movies, and spending time with his family. He currently resides in Maryland.
Check out his work on Amazon:
2025-2026 FALL & WINTER AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT SERIES
This series will be showcased on my Patreon first, every Friday this fall and winter, through early 2026. If you are not a patron, look for the new author spotlight to appear here on the blog every Saturday! These will be for incredibly talented, but lesser known, authors that truly deserve a spotlight on their work!
As is our mission here at Uncomfortably Dark, we want to be a community support and while how we do that may change over time, we will always find a way to shed light on the many wonderfully talented people in this space.
Please check out their interviews, click on their links, and check out their work for yourself. I promise you will not be disappointed.
The second Author Spotlight of this series is Z. Martin, author, reviewer, Uncomfortably Dark Street team promoter and hype man, and all-around awesome human being. Get to know a bit more about him below and be sure to grab a book or two to check out.
MEET Z. MARTIN
I am Z. Martin. I specialize in writing short works of horror and fantasy that everyone can enjoy in those little moments of free time they get. I am a father of three and a husband as well as a former Marine. When I'm not writing, I'm devouring books from other authors.
Writing style: I have a twisted mind that distorts ordinary things in my environment into creepy ideas. So, my style revolves around keeping my eyes open and observing everything that goes on around me.
My favorite type of horror to write is psychological. Digging into the mind of a reader or villain is some of the most fun you can have as an author. Especially when you can pull the wool over the readers eyes for majority of the story.
My favorite book I've written is The Gateway. There's just something about the book that won't let me go and I can't wait to revisit it down the road.
Top 5 authors are:
Gage Greenwood. He writes some incredibly detailed characters and some insane plots.
Jay Bower: Twisted stories with just the right amount of gore and wonder.
Candace Nola: Incredibly vivid characters and settings
Patrick Tumblety: His books just don't let go of you
Poe: He's who inspired my writing style and first started my love of reading
Imposter syndrome: I have surrounded myself with a very supportive community over the years and anytime I'm feeling down I know all I have to do is reach out to any of them and I'll get the kick in the butt I need.
New Trope or Sub-genre: Over the years I've spread my wings quite a bit and tried to touch on multiple different genres. The only one I haven't attempted is mystery and I'm scared to even try because I know it will turn into something really dark
Writing Career in 5 Years: I don't really have a plan for my writing career. I'm honestly just enjoying creating and interacting. I kind of see myself going the way of the older generations of authors. My work will find their people when its time even if that's long after I'm gone.
WIP Pitch: A lovestruck teen downloads an app at his crushes request. The app is not as it seems and soon, he's stuck in a cycle he desperately needs out of.
Where Can We Find You: I am available on just about every platform under zmartinbooks or some variation of it. I recently was included in an anthology called Suck It Up Buttercup, a men's mental health charity anthology. There are also several other anthologies coming out that I've been included in.
Bio for Z. Martin
Z Martin is a former Marine and a maven of horror writing. He lives to bring chills and thrills to the world at large with his quill dipped in blood. When he's not crafting horrific scenes, he spends his days working for the community and raising his beloved family.
Amazon.com: Z Martin: books, biography, latest update
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