Review: Aickman's Heirs edited by Simon Strantzas

Robert Aickman is a name that many readers of horror/supernatural/weird fiction have probably heard before. He didn't have a huge output of fiction in his time as a writer (I believe he wrote 48 or so stories that were published) but the stories he did write have long since established his name in the genre's history.

Aickman's fiction is most often referred to as "strange stories" instead of weird fiction or horror. His stories are less about the weird crossing over into reality as they are about reality and strangeness being intertwined. Even the most mundane objects or conversations found in his stories are laden with the strange, and his stories often utilize dream logic. One of his most well-known stories, The Hospice, serves as a prime example, and reading the story is akin to playing voyeur to someone's dream. Subtle is also a key word when it comes to Aickman. Much of the dread and unease from his stories comes across in a quiet, subtle manner, and often include liberal doses of dark humor.

These stories have influenced many writers over the years, and one among them is author Simon Strantzas. It was actually Simon Strantzas and Daniel Mills who pointed me in Aickman's direction years ago, and for that I am grateful.

It's also fitting that the man who introduced me to Aickman's work is the editor of the anthology I'm reviewing, Aickman's Heirs. I couldn't think of a better editor for this project, and ever since Shadows Edge I've been eager to read another anthology with Simon behind the helm. And oh boy, was the wait worth it.

Aickman's influence is explored in fifteen stories from some of the finest working authors. Brian Evenson's "Seaside Town" is an excellent choice to kick off the anthology. A man set in his ways gets dragged on a vacation with his girlfriend, and what follows is an excellent example of how to quietly and slowly build up dread.

Richard Gavin's "Neithernor" comes next and, as usual, is a standout. Gavin is a master of creepy stories, and this one ranks up there as one of his most unsettling.

I'm familiar with John Howard, although I haven't read him until I read his story "Least Light, Most Night." I now plan to seek out more of his work. The story itself concerns a man reluctantly accepting his coworker's invitation to a social gathering, and then it gets weird.

I'm most familiar with David Nickle due to his great novels, but the man can write some stellar short fiction as well. "Camp"is about a newlywed couple on a camping trip, and Nickle deftly hands the creep factor.

D.P. Watt's "A Delicate Craft" sees an immigrant worker taking up an unlikely hobby, and Nadia Bulkin's "Seven Minutes in Heaven" explores a small American town with a secret.

Michael Cisco's "Infestations" has a woman struggling with personal demons return to her home city to clean out a deceased family friend's apartment. Dread and paranoia infest the story.

Lynda E. Rucker's "The Dying Season" is perhaps my favorite story in the anthology. A couple spends time in a trailer at a leisure resort during the off season when they meet a young couple staying somewhere nearby. Rucker's story is brimming with subtle unease, and haunted me long after reading it.

Michael Wehunt's "A Discreet Music" stays closer to home, as a grieving widower is changing while confronting truths about himself. John Langan brings the strange into a strip club with "Underground Economy" while Helen Marshall's "The Vaults of Heaven" takes place in Greece as a British archaeologist is brought on to do some work on a few ancient finds.

Malcolm Devlin's "Two Brothers" is a sad story about growing up, while Daniel Mills writes the most subtle story of his that I've read, "The Lake." Growing up is also a major part of his story, as past events shape who we become. "A Change of Scene" by Nina Allan is the longest story in the book, and like some stories before it concerns a vacation gone wrong. The anthology ends with Lisa Tuttle's "The Book That Finds You" which is an eerie tale concerning a woman and her obsession with a certain obscure weird fiction writer.

The fifteen tales paint a powerful landscape of the strange, the subtle, the uneasy, and at times the darkly humorous. Strantzas's sophomore editing gig couldn't have been any better, and I'm sure this anthology will find it's way on many Best Of lists at the end of the year.

Review: Black Star, Black Sun by Rich Hawkins

Black Star, Black Sun is my first exposure to author Rich Hawkins. He previously penned The Last Plague, a novel about a not quite zombie apocalypse, that picked up some good reviews. This work is much shorter, making it a novella, although it is still quite a good size.

The story follows a man named Ben Ottway who, still reeling from his wife's mysterious disappearance, returns to his old hometown to stay with his father and put his life back together. Things take a turn for the worse as Ben begins having disturbing dreams that start to cross over into reality. He thinks he may be going mad, until he realizes that the "dreams" are not experienced by him alone.

Hawkins brings the otherwordly, cosmic horror in droves. Once things begin they escalate very quickly, grotesque scenes abound and the town soon becomes a Boschian nightmare. There are some wonderfully done, creepy segments, but some later parts of the book came across as being laid on a bit too thick. The scenes that were subtle were much more effective, and where the author shined. Many of the earlier scenes with Ben traipsing around and having off-putting encounters were handled like a pro.

The protagonist was very convincing as a man whose life was falling apart, barely hanging on with the the help from nicotine and caffeine. He existed in parallel with his father, who numbed the pain of his widower lifestyle with alcohol. At times I felt like the dad wasn't as developed, but I instead came to see him purposefully portrayed as an almost-empty shell of a man, lonely and filling his time with television and booze while wearing a ratty dressy gown, church being his only real social outlet.

This is a good novella, but it's not without it's problems, many of which are common among newer authors. Some of the side characters came across as rather one-dimensional, and at times I was struck by a repetitiveness. Later parts of the book seemed overlong, and lost some of their effectiveness as a result, whereas a trimming may have resulted in these segments packing more of a punch.

Criticisms aside, I enjoyed the novella quite a bit. Many segments of it really resonated with me. It's the second published book from a new author, and at times it is obvious that this is an early work of fiction. That said, I see a lot of talent in Mr. Hawkins, and I have a feeling I will be doubly pleased with his next offering. In the meantime, fans of Lovecraftian horror should check this novella out, as I have a feeling that many of them will really love this one.

Review Roundup & News: March

Apologies for not updating sooner, but at the end of January I took on the duties of a school counselor at a nearby school while continuing my full time time counseling job. Doing the work of two school counselors has taken a lot of time, and I fell behind on my reviews. Also I have been reading some books that probably don't belong on the blog, since early on I decided the blog was going to focus on dark and weird fiction, so when I read the occasional fantasy novel I won't be reviewing it here (Joe Abercrombie's Half the World is amazing though, if you like fantasy then READ MORE ABERCROMBIE). Things are still busy, but I plan to make more blog posts.

I have some cool news. I conducted an interview with author Laird Barron which will appear in the Lazy Fascist Review. I also reviewed Gabriel Blackwell's The Natural Dissolution of Fleeting-Improvised-Men which should also appear in volume three or four of Lazy Fascist Review.

Jordan Krall's Dunhams Manor Press is having an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for their 2015 lineup. This is a really cool micropress and their limited edition chapbooks are essential for weird fiction fans. The campaign is also a great chance to pay upfront for the books coming out in 2015 so you don't have to worry about ordering them all individually. The campaign is HERE and now is the chance to meet some stretch goals before the campaign closes on March 26th at 11:59 PM.

Also, some good news regarding some colleagues: Clint Hale recently started a new review blog, The Dark of Things. Clint knows his weird, so I have high hopes for this venture. C.M. Muller, a reviewer and published author, is starting an annual journal of weird fiction, Nightscript. Mr. Muller has excellent taste and I have no doubt that this will be premiere publication. Also recently, my friend Sam Cowan has also announced that his micropress Dim Shores will announce their first publication soon. Dim Shores will publish novella and short story chapbooks. Sam is very knowledgeable about weird fiction as well, and has a background in book design and publishing so I have no doubt this will also be a top notch micropress. Exciting times ahead!!!!!


Now, on to the reviews.

Vox Terrae by John Claude Smith (Dunhams Manor Press)

John Claude Smith is a new writer for me. I have both of his story collections, but haven't cracked them open yet. One weekend I found myself with some reading time, and decided to devote it to several chapbooks from Jordan Krall's Dunhams Manor Press, the weird fiction imprint of Dynatox Ministries. This was also the day I became a fan of John Claude Smith. I started with Vox Terrae, a disturbing tale about a grieving man seeking a way to his beloved. As a couple they were both engaged in the occult, and sought a way to the other side. Kenneth, the main character, contacts his old friend and occult mentor Ivan, and the two seek out a woman whose translation of a vile tome led to Kenneth's girlfriend's death. Their journey leads them to a house of horrors that brought to mind Laird Barron's Children of Old Leech.

Dandelions by John Claude Smith (Dunhams Manor Press)

Dandelions is a bit more of a slow burn, and the author handles it perfectly.Two couples take a trip and stay at an eerie little motel by the seashore. The place is permeated by a sense of wrongness. Small oddities taking on sinister connotations and added together to create a surreal nightmare. An excellent use of atmosphere and location, and a terrifying little gem of a weird tale.

Twisted Histories by Tom Lynch (Dunhams Manor Press)

Tom Lynch brings a B-movie aesthetic to these two stories based on Lovecraft's Mythos. The first of the two stories, and the creepier of the two, is a telling of how John Dee translated the Necronomicon. A desperate attempt of saving his career and reputation quickly becomes a descent into madness. The second story is an action-filled yarn of Cold War spies in Berlin. Some weird experiments are being carried out on the Eastern side of the Wall, and some American spies find out the hard way that it's often best not to meddle where weird science is concerned. The two stories lack the literary punch some of the other Dunhams Manor books go for, but they are nonetheless very fun reads.

The Queen in Green by Gina Ranalli (Dunhams Manor Press)

Another author that I've yet to read before, Gina Ranalli delivers a creepy tale set in the woods. A young boy leave his family's campsite to explore the woods and collect kindling. He meets a mysterious dwarf who wants to introduce him to a very special tree. The story is quite short, but Ranalli manages to paint a rather creepy picture.

At the time of this writing, copies are still available HERE.

This Fragmented Body by Christopher Slatsky (Dunhams Manor Press)

The first of three chapbooks by Christopher Slatsky I read in one day, and enough to get me excited about this author. Amputees, run down apartment buildings, and puppets make for a heady brew. A blackout hits the city, and several amputees of all ages who make the building their home confront their personal tragedies and recurring nightmares. Slatsky builds dread from page one, and is not shy about amping up the weird.

No One Is sleeping In This World by Christopher Slatsky (Dunhams Manor Press)

Two artistic friends are making a documentary about architecture, and decide to visit an old warehouse designed by an eccentric, one-of-a-kind architect. Somehow the building managed to be forgotten, tucked away in a run-down industrial district, until one of the friends finds out about it. They visit it to find a sort of Cult of Cities. Slatsky offers a glimpse of American urban decay, and early on layers on the unease that makes for some of the best weird fiction. Wind blown plastic bags appear to be floating faces, strange homeless people seem to rule the streets in a forgotten, dying part of town, and an incongruous warehouse built by an infamous architect is somewhere where it makes no sense for it to be. A wonderful story.

Alectryomancer by Christopher Slatsky (Dunhams Manor Press)

This strange tale is a surreal, sci-fi masterpiece. At a depression era work camp, Rey spends the days working in the fields and contemplating a strange recurring hallucination he has of a burning horse. People have been disappearing, but Rey is mostly concerned with cockfighting, as his successful gamecock is set to fight an undefeated, otherworldly gamecock called Alectryomancer. Rey kills time in between work and cockfighting with looking at pictures of a family he hasn't seen in a long time, and reading passages from a bizarre, nonsensical journal that he found. The journal discusses time travel, ancient engines at the                                                               core of the earth and similar concepts. Slatsky has succeeded in                                                             creating an original, bizarre tale that left me full of dread and                                                                 wonder.

                                                      At the time of this writing, copies are still available to order HERE.

The Wrenchies by Farel Dalrymple (First Second)

I very much enjoy graphic novels but tend to not review them. The Wrenchies deserves a mention here because it is one of the strangest ones I have read, and one of the best. The story begins with two brothers who enter a cave and defeat a demon. One brother, Sherman, takes an amulet as his prize. What follows is a disjointed, surreal narrative that follows several threads as they weave together. Children gangs roam a post-apocalyptic America, fighting against the Demons who have control. An outsider child named Hollis lives in out time as a neighbor of the adult Sherman, and when he finds the amulet he is transported to this strange, futuristic world where he finally finds people he fits in with - the child gang called The Wrenchies. An adult group of Wrenchies that exists in Sherman's comic is through a timewarp to join their young counterparts. There are all sorts of things going on in this novel. Modern day Sherman seems a very troubled man, unhappy and filling his time off from work doing drugs and drinking, only     productive when he writes his comic. It seems he is haunted by some sort of tragedy in the past, and the line is blurred as to what is truth and what is fantasy when it comes to Sherman. The fantastical version seems to have been many things: a child spy, a demon-slaying warrior, a space explorer. A hard to understand book, The Wrenchies will benefit from multiple rereads. The book is wonderfully entertaining and thought provoking, and the art is absolutely gorgeous.

Review: Unseaming by Mike Allen

Mike Allen's collection Unseaming came to me as a complete surprise. Author Joe Pulver recommended it, and then I received an ARC. Mike Allen is mostly known as a poet, and an editor for Mythic Delirium and Clockwork Phoenix, and up until now I hadn't read any fiction from him, which is unfortunate because these stories could very well snag him an award for best collection.

Unseaming collects fourteen stories, eleven of which have been published elsewhere over the last sixteen years, and three of which are original to this collection. The stories range from dark fantasy to outright horror, and are preceded by an introduction written by Laird Barron.

Allen's skill as a poet can be seen in his fiction, in which he exhibits a strong, confident prose style. His deft use of language and description further flesh out his fiction. Many themes are explored within the stories: dark desires, secrets, childhood trauma, love, loss, and transformation.

The book opens with The Button Bin, a Nebula-nominated emotional rollercoaster. As disturbing truths are revealed the lines between hero and villain are shattered. The penultimate story, The Quiltmaker, is an original novella which serves as sequel to The Button Bin. The interconnected themes of secrets and dark desires are amplified within, as a troubled neighborhood is laid bare for the reader to see. The sequel adds even more dimensions to the origin story, and is the true climax of the collection.

Self-deceit and self destruction come into play in a few of the stories. In Her Acres of Pastoral Playground, a man is living a lie in order to protect some semblance of family and his sanity. Humpty is one man's fever dream and coming to terms with childhood abuse. Reality blurs, and the protagonist doesn't know what to believe himself until he faces the truth. Gutter sees a young reporter who becomes obsessed with an area which sees an abundance of death and disappearances and goes on a crusade for the truth. Despite constant warnings by his superiors, his obsession leads him to drugs and alcohol and costs him his family, his health, and much, much more.

Apocalypses are begun or played out in The Blessed Days, Let There Be Darkness, and Her Acres of Pastoral Playground. Allen gives glimpses of terrible futures. In The Blessed Days people all across the world awake everyday covered in blood that has seeped through their pores, which is just a precursor for something much worse. Her Acres of Pastoral Playground gives a glimpse of a world in which Lovecraftian beings have risen and reclaimed the Earth as their own. Let There Be Darkness offers a truly terrifying look at what God could really be like, and what would happen if the Second Coming isn't accepted.

Dark fairy tales and Euro folklore are at play in The Music of Bremen Farm and Stone Flowers. The first being a tale of revenge, and the second a tale of love and the cruel bargains that must sometimes be made.

Weird places are used effectively in The Hiker's Tale and The Lead Between the Panes, two of my favorite tales from the collection.

Unseaming is one of my highlights of 2014, which has been a year of strong fiction collections (especially debuts). It is my belief that Mike Allen is about to grab a lot of attention with this book. The sporadic publishing of his fiction over nearly two decades has helped him fly under the fiction radar. This changes with his collection. This is where he crashes the party, strutting in like a rockstar, with the skills to back it up. I expect to hear his name a lot in the coming years.

Review Roundup: August

I'm finishing up the summer by posting another roundup of reviews. This time I review a collection, an anthology, and a book of non-fiction.

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Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M. Bartlett

I tend to avoid most self-published works, as the vast majority I have encountered tend to be self-published because no publisher in their right mind would even touch them. This book is one of the exceptions, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it re-released under a publisher's banner. Billing it as "collected short fiction" kind of sells the book short. This book is MUCH more than that. It reads like a post-modern novel. Very short stories and vignettes combine in an effective way to offer glimpses into an area infected by a sort of weird evil, using a phantom radio station to twist reality. Bartlett's book gets under the skin and digs deep. There is a mad genius at work here, the stories offering enough of a glimpse that a full picture nearly forms, yet not giving away the full game. This collection of nightmares, and disturbing radio broadcasts blends together so well that the book transcends the concept of a simple short fiction collection and becomes so much more. Sure, the book could use a tad bit of polish, no different from many small press books, but the quality of writing here hints at a promising future. I fully anticipate this book to be considered by many to be a modern cult classic, and I very much look forward to more from Mr. Bartlett. Highly recommended, there is something special at work here.

Fearful Symmetries edited by Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow is the modern queen of dark fiction. It simply cannot be disputed. Published by Canadian publisher ChiZine Publications (who already put out one stellar horror anthology earlier this year with Shadows & Tall Trees 2014 edited by Michael Kelly) Fearful Symmetries is a non-themed horror anthology consisting of twenty short stories by many of the genre's best. As with most Datlow anthologies, these stories run the gamut from pure horror to dark fantasy, and as such there is a bit of something here for all sorts of readers. In reading this anthology I found that most of my favorite stories came not from my usual favorite authors, but from authors of whom I was less familiar with: Helen Marshall, Robert Shearman, Siobhan Carroll, Carole Johnston, Catherine Macleod, Bruce McAllister and Pat Cadigan. Definitely one of the better anthologies of the year.

When the Stars Are Right by Scott R. Jones

Scott R. Jones has done something really special with this book. What sounds like a ridiculous premise, namely taking Lovecraft's fiction and using it as the basis of a spiritual path, actually comes together to create a fun reading experience. Taking a unique look at Lovecraft's deities (the reader of this may never view them quite the same again) and using his own personal experiences, Mr. Jones makes a case for living a life dedicated towards achieving the 'Black Gnosis,' a sort of tentacled Nirvana. The "R'lyehian" therefore lives a life constantly seeking knowledge and experience, in both dreams and waking life. It's clear that the author knows his Lovecraft in a way that perhaps no one else does. At times hilarious, at others deeply personal, this book is as much a love letter to the Gentleman of Providence as it is anything else, a cosmic thank-you note if you will. Some readers might not think this book sounds like their cup of tea, but anyone with an interest in Lovecraft should put this on their to-read list immediately. It's highly entertaining, and there's enough interesting concepts inside that all Lovecraft fans will find something to take away from it. Highly recommended.

Review: Shadows & Tall Trees 2014

Shadows & Tall Trees is the premiere journal for weird fiction. Editor Michael Kelly never fails to combine a stellar lineup of stories exploring the liminal and strange. The most recent volume, Issue 6, is special in more ways than one. It is the first Shadows & Tall Trees to be released since Undertow became an imprint of ChiZine Publications. It also marks the series growing from a smaller journal format to a full blown anthology, containing seventeen stories. This volume is also dedicated to Joel Lane, one of the finest practitioners in the genre, who tragically left us last year.

Kelly has far exceeded expectations, putting together an exceptional volume at a much larger length, alleviating the reader's fear that the larger length would lessen the overall quality by including filler stories.

Some highlights include:

Michael Wehunt's Onanon is a really creepy story about a man, his sickly old mother, and a mysterious girl. The man's search for identity and who is mother truly was are intertwined with the girl he begins a sort of affair with. The story builds to quite a disturbing conclusion.

Hidden in the Alphabet by Charles Wilkinson has an old, once-controversial filmmaker attempting to meet his long estranged and thought dead son, a meeting set up by his niece, who was once an actress in his films. There is a sense of great wrongdoing in the director's past, as he used his son and niece in ways that were utterly wrong, and a current sense of justice being enacted on the director.

Kaaron Warren's Death Door Cafe is about dying people given a second chance, and what they are willing to sacrifice of themselves for that chance. The setting is a secretive cafe, which is only known from word of mouth, where the dying go to see if they are worthy. The story is melancholic and beautiful, another great story from an excellent writer.

Road Dead is a really short story about four young guys going for a drive in order to find cellphone reception, when one of them decides to take a detour. F. Brett Cox manages to pull off a creepy little story that reads like some rattling off a story about a dream they had.

V.H. Leslie's The Quiet Room is a tale of grief and family. A father gains full custody of his daughter after her mother dies, and they move into a big old house. As the man is trying to adjust to being a full time father of a teenager, his daughter takes a turn for the strange, becoming quiet and withdrawn, seemingly obsessed with a dusty, old piano, on which she keeps the urn of her mother's ashes. Leslie paints a convincing portrait of the father and his daughter, and there is a sense of dread permeating throughout the piece.

R.B. Russell is mainly known for running Tartarus Press, an excellent British publisher of weird fiction, but he is quite an author as well. Night Porter takes a premise that seems like it's straight out of a mainstream horror flick: a young girl takes a job as a hotel's night porter, and her job soon takes a turn for the horrific. Russell takes this premise and veers it straight into weird territory, creating an excellent horror story that I enjoyed very much.

Shaddertown by Conrad Williams reminds me of much of Ramsey Campbell's modern fiction. In Holes for Faces many of Ramsey Campbell's stories featured either elderly characters, or children, and sometimes both, playing on their similarities and differences. These stories are often fraught with anxiety so powerfully written that the readers begins to feel it themselves. This is very much what Williams has done with this story, which follows a grandmother with breathing problems (cigarettes get you every time) who decides to take her grandson out on a tour of some underground tunnels. The anxiety the old woman feels is palpable, and Williams executes this like a master.

Christopher Harman's Apple Pie and Sulphur was an great story that was bursting with dread. A trio of old hiking buddies get together for a last hike before two of them move away, and due to a full train take a walking detour through a mysterious wood. They stumble on some creepy abandoned places before finding a small inn/restaurant seemingly in the middle of nowhere. At this point Harman takes the gloves off and the story quickly veers into nightmare territory. Harman excelled at creating a surreal atmosphere, as the remaining protagonist seemed trapped in an almost limbo-like version of town, not knowing what was real and what was hallucination. The dread builds and builds, although the ending doesn't quite live up to it. Overall a very impressive story.

Summerside by Alison Moore explores the liminal strangeness of a certain house when a new girl moves in.

The Space Between is co-authored by Ray Cluley and Ralph Robert Moore, and is one of my favorite stories in the anthology. The authors do an excellent job displaying the hopelessness and despair of their main character. A man loses his swanky job, forcing him and his wife to move into a cheap apartment in an old boarding house until they can get back on their feet. A small door leads to a storage area and into crawlspaces around the house, and this soon becomes the man's escape outlet. Things get murkier and murkier the more obsessed with the crawlspaces and neighbors the man becomes, as he gets bolder and bolder in his travels through the walls. It's a chilling look into voyeurism, and how low someone can fall.

C.M. Muller's Vrangr is a short, eerie tale of a man inheriting an old property from a relative he doesn't even know. He has strange dreams and an affinity for the past, but decides to head to the old house and see what his inheritance is all about. I am familiar with Muller as a blogger and reviewer, and this was the first piece of his fiction that I have read, and it left me rather impressed. From reading the story it is clear that Muller knows his weird fiction, and has the skills to craft a rather numinous tale. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

The anthology closes with the wonderful Writings Found in a Red Notebook. I have long been a sucker for the "found notebook" style of stories (although I've so far been mixed about found footage films) as is apparent from two of the stories I chose to publish in Children of Old Leech. David Surface knocks it out of the park with this story, and sustains an intense feeling of dread that builds up right until the climax. When a troubled couple take a detour on a long drive through the desert, they awake lost and confused. Obviously, things get worse. It's an intense, terrifying story, and is enough for me to look for more of Surface's fiction.

2014 is a good year for weird fiction. Shadows & Tall Trees grows to anthology length, and knocks it out of the park, and Kelly's Undertow Publications is publishing the first volume of The Year's Best Weird Fiction edited by Laird Barron.

Review: Lovecraft's Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow

Perhaps no one knows horror better than veteran editor Ellen Datlow.  Over the years she has racked up an impressive catalog, and took in many well deserved awards. In 2009 she did her first Lovecraft-themed anthology Lovecraft Unbound, and in 2014 her second Lovecraft themed anthology, Lovecraft's Monsters is being published by Tachyon Publications. The anthologies differ in that Lovecraft Unbound played with Lovecraft's themes and ideas, while trying to avoid mentions of tentacles, Cthulhu, the Necronomicon etc. With Lovecraft's Monsters Datlow has pulled together stories involving creatures from or based on the works of Lovecraft, and manages to give readers a multi-faceted glimpse into the physical horrors birthed from this man's imagination. As an added bonus, each story features an illustration from artist John Coulthart.

The Table of Contents is as follows:

“Only the End of the World Again" by Neil Gaiman

“Bulldozer” by Laird Barron

“Red Goat Black Goat” by Nadia Bulkin

“The Same Deep Waters as You” by Brian Hodge

“A Quarter to Three” by Kim Newman

“The Dappled Thing” by William Browning Spencer

“Inelastic Collisions” by Elizabeth Bear

“Remnants” by Fred Chappell

“Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl” by Caitlín R. Kiernan

“The Sect of the Idiot” by Thomas Ligotti

“Jar of Salts” by Gemma Files

“Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole” by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley

“Waiting at the Crossroads Motel” by Steve Rasnic Tem

“I’ve Come to Talk with you Again” by Karl Edward Wagner

“The Bleeding Shadow” by Joe R. Lansdale

“That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable” by Nick Mamatas

“Haruspicy” by Gemma Files

“Children of the Fang” by John Langan

In the Introduction, Datlow says that she had three goals in mind when putting this anthology together. She wanted to avoid pastiche, wanted to select stories that haven't been overly reprinted, and to also showcase Lovecraft stories by authors not usually known for these types of stories. Although there are a few I have encountered elsewhere, Datlow was successful in all three of her goals. 

Some Favorite stories:

"Bulldozer" by Laird Barron: This story has so much to like; a rough Western setting, a tough and jaded Pinkerton agent, a scary Circus strongman as the antagonist, and some really awesome scenes. This was one of the earlier Laird Barron stories I've read, and it never gets stale with rereads.

"Red Goat Black Goat" by Nadia Bulkin: This was my first time reading Bulkin, and it will be far from the last. The story is a blend of Indonesian folklore/myth and Lovecraft, and makes for a particularly disturbing read. I look forward to tracking down some more of this author's work.

"The Same Deep Waters as You" by Brian Hodge: One of the many stories in this anthology that draw from Lovecraft's Innsmouth, this one deals with Stockholm Syndrome. An "animal whisperer" is brought to a military prison island in an attempt to communicate with the mutated Innsmouth residents taken in the 1920's FBI raid. Hodge also makes good use of The Bloop.

"A Quarter to Three" by Kim Newman: This is one of those short stories that I've read many times, and I never get sick of it. Newman's use of language is spot-on, and sets the scene perfectly for this amusing little story.

"The Dappled Thing" by William Browning Spencer: Another light-hearted tale, this one is a pulpy steampunk yarn about an explorer and his group of men coming to the New Land in a bizarre craft to search for a Lord's daughter. The story is fun, although ends on a creepy note.

"The Sect of The Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti: A dreamlike narrative of a man in a bizarre town who stumbles "behind the curtain" so to speak. This is the kind of story Ligotti writes best.

"Black is the Pit, From Pole to Pole" by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley: I was lukewarm to this story at first, but it won me over rather quickly. The authors blend Frankenstein's Monster with Hollow Earth Theory and Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness into a strange sort of "epic quest" story. 

"Waiting at the Crossroads Motel" by Steve Rasnic Tem: The story follows a man who is more than what he seems as he drags his family to a motel in the middle of nowhere, as he waits for something he feels is going to happen. The man is disturbing, with sociopath tendencies (not caring about his family, only pretending to) and makes for a tense story.

"I've Come to Talk With You Again" by Karl Edward Wagner: A Wagner story riffing on The King in Yellow, what's not to like?

"The Bleeding Shadow" by Joe R. Lansdale: This is a writer who can tell a story, and never disappoints. This one follows an unlicensed PI looking into a case which involves the otherworldly.

"That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable" by Nick Mamatas: A trio of survivors drink booze in a cave and talk, while the world around them finishes falling apart. 

"Children of the Fang" by John Langan: When asked what monsters from Lovecraft's fiction would see resurrection in modern fiction, the reptilian creatures from "The Nameless City" would most likely not make anyone's list. Langan takes this overlooked creatures and breathes life into them in this wonderful closing story, which is also the only original piece of fiction in the anthology. 

Ellen Datlow's second editorial outing into the realm of Lovecraft proves even more fruitful than the first. Focusing on Lovecraftian monsters, Datlow offers readers sixteen stories and two poems of a variety that should please any fans of the genre. 

Review: The Lord Came at Twilight by Daniel Mills

I discovered Daniels Mills at the same time I started this blog. The very first book I reviewed, A Season in Carcosa, contained my introduction to the young author. "MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room" is an excellent spin on The King in Yellow, and marked Mills as an author worth watching. In the next year I would read Daniel's stories in several anthologies, always excited when I saw a table of contents announced including his name. I also read and reviewed his novel, Revenants, which is a great weird story of Puritans and the wilds of New England.

The Lord Came at Twilight is Daniel's first collection of short fiction, and includes fourteen stories: a dozen reprints and two originals. It was with great pleasure that I revisited the many stories that I have read previously in anthologies, and even greater pleasure to enjoy the stories I was as-of-yet unfamiliar with.

Dan's writing has a classicist bent, as he often prefers to tell his stories with a refined, more formal voice. In the hands of a lesser writer taking this path can be disastrous, but Mills crafts these tales with ease. Whether he is riffing on Lovecraft with "Whisperers" or taking readers to a mysterious plantation in the Civil War South in "House of the Caryatids," Dan is using a classic voice in a way that is all his own.


Some favorites from the collection include:

"The Hollow" - One of Dan's best stories to date, it follows an abandoned boy growing up around his abandoned village. The sense of loneliness and regret plague the young man.

"MS Found in a Chicago Hotel Room" - I love a good King in Yellow story, and Mills delivers with this one. A strange trip to a mysterious brothel leads to nothing but trouble for the narrator, and the story makes quite a connection to the Gentleman of Providence.

"The Photographer's Tale" - A spooky tale with hints of a disturbing past. Mills keeps the hints subtle, making the tale all the more powerful.

"The Wayside Voices" - Told using multiple narrators, this one deals with an inn run by a crazed, violent innkeeper, and the ghosts that belong to the inn.

"The Naked Goddess" - I've always been a fan of horror stories that see a character finding himself/herself in a town which proves itself to be hostile, like the narrator Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

"The Lord Came At Twilight" - A story building on Ligotti's "The Mystics of Muelenburg."

Daniel Mills has a poet's eye for beauty, and his literature evokes a sense of classic weird fiction. His love for his native New England goes hand in hand with his knack for conveying the strange and liminal. The stories within The Lord Came at Twilight are at home among the best weird tales from Machen, Blackwood and The Gentleman from Providence himself.

Review: The Least of My Scars by Stephen Graham Jones

One of the high notes of the latter days of 2013 was that the noir genre saw the birth of Broken River Books. Author J. David Osborne's Kickstarter-funded publishing project exploded onto the scene with five simultaneous releases, all featuring gorgeous Matthew Revert covers.

One of these releases is The Least of My Scars, one of the wildest, most twisted books I've had the pleasure of reading. Author Stephen Graham Jones is no stranger to the scene, and he is currently one of the most impressive writers working across genres, remaining at ease whether he's penning horror, noir, or bizarro stories. One thing he doesn't do is hold punches, and The Least of My Scars is one hard-hitting novel, giving readers a look into an extremely warped mind that is sure to leave it's mark.

The premise is one of a kind: serial killer William Colton Hughes finds himself caught by a local crime boss, who decides to utilize his talents. Posted up in an apartment that he never leaves, Hughes murders the people that his boss has delivered to his door. The system seems like it would be perfect for a man like Hughes, a constant stream of victims, anything else he wants delivered by the bosses henchmen, and a buffer of adjacent empty apartments connected to his in order to keep his business quiet. However, the isolation seems to further warp his already sick mind, and has him questioning reality.

Hughes is also the novel's narrator, and this is what really makes the novel shine. He makes for a completely unreliable narrator, very much unable to separate reality from his fantasies. His calculating, cold and sadistic side makes him very effective at what he does, although it's counter-balanced by his paranoia and debilitating fantasies, as well as bizarre OCD-style behaviors.

This book is not for everyone, and I mean that in a good way. Despite the over the top premise, the disturbed narration is scary. It's scary because Stephen Graham Jones managed to do such a convincing job. This isn't a narrative that goes away, days later I still find it festering in the back of my head.

This book is too good to be missed. It's bloody, it's scary, and at times it's even funny, which makes it even scarier. William Colton Hughes is destined to go down in the books among the greatest literary psychopaths and villains. So what are you waiting for? Go and knock on his door.

Review: Wild Fell by Michael Rowe

2011 saw the publication of one of the best and scariest modern vampire novels with Enter, Night. Now Michael Rowe's second horror novel, Wild Fell, is doing for ghosts what Enter, Night did for vampires.

Much like Enter, Night before it, Wild Fell takes place in Ontario and takes a structurally interesting approach. The main narrative of Enter, Night ended after 340 pages and was followed by a 70 page coda, a translation of an old document which cleared up a lot of the backstory/history behind the vampire infestation of Parr's Landing. The coda can stand as a novella of it's own, and was a unique, fun way to wrap up the novel.

Wild Fell is a bit unorthodox as well, with the narrator not even getting to the "haunted house" until the majority of the book has passed. This doesn't reflect badly on the story whatsoever, and further cements the idea that Wild Fell is a ghost story as opposed to a typical haunted house story. Fraught with themes such as gender identity and exploration of memory and memory loss, Rowe's sophomore novel is a literary ghost story that can stand with the best of it's kind.

Rowe does a great job with his characters, and his narrator Jameson Browning is an easy man to sympathize with, as he's had his fair share of disappointments and tragedies throughout his life. From the beginning of Jameson's (or Jamie, as he is mostly referred to) narrative, it becomes clear that his problems start at a young age of childhood. Childhood always makes for a wonderful setting for horror, as it's a period in everyone's life in which exists a certain, special blend of magic, awe, and terror that dissipates as we grow into a different perspective. While the magic and awe seem to disappear, the terror and trauma can often bury itself deep, bleeding over into life later on, and the narrative is a perfect example of this, with Jamie forgetting many things which he remembers later on as he recounts his tale.

The author is just as on point with the pacing as he is with his narrator, and although the volume clocks in at a slimmer page count than his first novel, it doesn't slow down at all and instead picks up speed as it cannonballs to it's gloriously creepy conclusion with an ending many readers will not see coming.

Wild Fell is the novel I ended 2013 with, and one that I could hardly put down. It is, without a doubt, one of the strongest ghost novels I've had the pleasure of reading, and easily alternates traditional ghost story tropes with a take that's entirely fresh and new. This one should be high on everyone's to-read list.

Review: Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

Several years ago, when I first discovered the rabbit-hole of weird fiction and dove into it face-first, one of the first authors/editors I discovered was Jeff Vandermeer. I read Veniss Underground, his bizarre, post-cyberpunk re-telling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. This quickly led to me snapping up every book with Vandermeer stamped on the cover.

It was City of Saints and Madmen that really blew me away. Vandermeer had created a fictional city of wonder, called Ambergris. This mosaic work of fiction was made up of novellas and short stories that all worked together to paint a portrait of a fantastic city with many secrets, most notably the Gray Caps, a mysterious race that resembles a cross between humans and mushrooms. Vandermeer continued the Ambergris saga with Shriek: An Afterword, which despite being the weakest book in the series is still a good read. Shriek is also written unlike any novel I have encountered before. The majority of the book is narrated by Janice Shriek, an art critic introduced in City of Saints and Madmen, as a biography/autobiography of her brother Duncan Shriek (a historian with a Gray Cap obsession) and herself, while Duncan fills in her manuscript with his own commentary in brackets. The result is a layered novel that is told in two different, although intertwined voices.

For some reason, I waited until now to read Finch, although I've heard over and over about how great it was, and it certainly lived up to the hype. Continuing the trend, Vandermeer took yet a different narrative approach with Finch, one that was much more mainstream in it's delivery. Best described by Richard Morgan as "fungal noir", Finch is a hard-boiled detective story like no other. Vandermeer sets Finch several decades after Shriek, in a time where the Gray Caps have risen up to conquer Ambergris. John Finch is a detective grudgingly working for the Gray Caps and keeping many of his own secrets. When his Gray Cap boss sets him on a bizarre murder case involving a dead man and a dead Gray Cap found lying side by side in an abandoned apartment building, Finch finds himself drawn into a plot which will forever change Ambergris.

Finch has excellent pacing, a good amount of action and several shady characters. The story is told in clipped sentences, and although it is told in the third person it captures the stereotypical gruff voice of a hard-boiled detective. It's narrative style makes it the most accessible of the Ambergris cycle, and although it can be enjoyed on it's own it is most rewarding to those who read the first two, as Finch wraps up some loose ends and sheds light on the Gray Cap mysteries which were introduced in the first two books.

Finch is an excellent example of Vandermeer's many literary talents; the style, setting, plot, tone and characters all align to create a fun noir like no other.

Review: Where Furnaces Burn by Joel Lane

On November 26, the weird fiction community had a shock when writer Joel Lane passed away in his sleep. I never had the chance to know him on a personal level, but his work was powerful, every story of his left an impression on me. A few days before his passing I picked up Where Furnaces Burn, which won the World Fantasy Award for best collection only a few weeks earlier.

Where Furnaces Burn consists of twenty-six short stories, some new for the collection and others having been published previously since 2004. The stories, which stand well enough on their own, come together to create a rich tapestry of one man's bizarre experiences while a member of the police force in Birmingham, UK.

Joel seems at home taking readers through landscapes of urban decay, and he captures the senses of despair and hopelessness with ease. The unnamed narrator is a flawed man in a decaying marriage that seems destined to fail from the start, and each story represents a different case he has worked on. The majority of the stories play with the sense of "thin places" and some are, in a way, ghost stories, although they are in no way traditional.

All of the stories are short, and the majority are eight to ten pages in length. Although all the stories are cut from the same cloth in terms of tone, they manage to be a diverse lot without a bad one in the bunch. They are all powerful pieces, and I enjoyed savoring them a few at a time.It is also interesting to read the stories in mostly chronological order (not publication order) and seeing how personally involved/obsessed the narrator becomes with some of the abnormal cases he seems to attract, and it's clear that they affect him on a deep level.


Joel Lane will be sorely missed; his voice was one of a kind. By all accounts he was a wonderful gentleman, and I'm sad that I will never have the chance to meet him. While the community mourns the loss of such a talented man, there are many who are honoring him in the best of ways: by reading his fiction and essays. I couldn't recommend this one enough, and readers should also grab The Witnesses Are Gone, a novella that I adore. 

Review: Subject 11 by Jeffrey Thomas

Cutting right to the chase, Subject 11 is one of the best novellas I've read all year. Jeffrey Thomas is at his best in this eerie story following a group of ten people (five women and five men) taking part in a mysterious experiment. I'll keep this review short, as the novella is about 90 pages and I wouldn't want to give anything away.

The setting is Ligottian urban decay at it's finest, as the experiment takes part in an abandoned complex of old, decrepit buildings. The ten participants are not allowed to tell their real names to each other, and instead refer to each other by their numbers. The particulars of the experiment are unknown to the participants, they just have to follow a simple list of rules: they can't share their names, they take the pills provided every morning, and once per day they must each enter a "confessional room" where they are free to talk about anything.

Thomas develops this story perfectly, and it's clear from the start that there is something sinister about the experiment. It's hard to put down, and the pacing doesn't let up. The mysteries are enticing, and Thomas brings them together for an ending that is sure to linger long in the minds of readers.

Keeping in line with the other Delirium Novellas, Subject 11 is available as an e-book for $2.99, or a limited hardback for $35. It's completely worth it.

Review: Rumbullion and Other Liminal Libations by Molly Tanzer

Molly Tanzer's debut collection, A Pretty Mouth, is easily one of my favorite reads of the past year. The connected Lovecraftian short stories detailing the legacy of the Calipash family became an instant weird classic. That being said, I had high expectations for her second collection, Rumbullion and Other Liminal Libations, recently published by Egaeus Press.

This hardcover is limited to a 250 copy print-run, and contains the title novella as well as six short stories. While the Calipash family fails to make an appearance, a few of the stories are still Lovecraftian flavored, but before digging into the fiction, it's worth taking a moment to talk about the book's aesthetics. Egaeus Press is fast becoming not only a quality outlet for weird fiction, but a publisher that makes beautiful books (here's a look at a previous collection: The Transfiguration of Mr. Punch). Rumbullion is a solid hardcover, with some gorgeous middle-ages woodcut style artwork throughout. Tanzer's love of mixology is present as well, each story being followed  by a drink recipe in order to quench the thirst of imbibing readers. Very cool!

The fiction within is further proof that Molly Tanzer is a unique voice in the weird fiction community. The title story, Rumbullion, is the highlight. A nobleman struggles to reconcile the bizarre events of an evening party at his house by obtaining accounts from various men and women who were in attendance. Of course, everyone is unreliable, and in the end the reader is left just as confused as the narrator. Tanzer herself described the novella as "Rashomon with fops" and I struggle to find a better description. Rumbullion has moments of hilarity, ridiculousness, and mystery aplenty.

Some of the short stories are better than others, but they all see a recurrence of themes. How John Wilmot Contracted Syphilis continues the theme of noble dandies, and follows lecherous nobleman John Wilmot pretending to be a foreign doctor while struggling with a bizarre supernatural force. Herbert West In Love, a take on the infamous Lovecraft character, is a darkly humorous story in which the protagonist is struggling with his sexuality, akin to the narrator of Rumbullion.

Oddly enough, while A Pretty Mouth and a few stories present in Rumbullion seem centered on fops and dandy noblemen and noblewomen, a prominent theme in the second collection alone is anthropomorphism. My least favorite story in the collection, In Sheep's Clothing, is one of the more bizarre post-apocalyptic stories I've come across, and seems very much a "go green and don't eat meat" propaganda piece, although the end of the story is pretty cool, and is when anthropomorphism first comes into play in the collection. The Poison-Well goes all out, with a small community of animals in which a shrewmouse starts a feud with a mole, making for a hilariously tragic tale. The full-out anthropomorphism continues with Tubby McMungus, Fat From Fungus, a story co-authored with Jesse Bullington and first appearing in Fungi. Tanzer and Bullington pen this funny tale of feuding, merkin-making noble cats, a tale that will not soon be forgotten. The collection closes with Go, Go, Go Said the Byakhee. This Lovecraftian tale is a beautifully twisted take on a far future earth in which at least one Ancient One has risen and works to remake the world in it's image. The people left go on pilgrimages in which they are changed into strange human/animal hybrids, making for one of the best "post-Cthulhu rising" themed stories I've read.

With Rumbullion and Other Liminal Libations, Molly Tanzer's humorous wit and wickedly bizarre imagination are on full display, providing discerning readers with a one of a kind weird fiction treat. With a fast-selling print-run of only 250 copies, this is a book that is grabbed sooner rather than later. It can be ordered directly from the publisher.


Also of note: an interview I conducted with Molly Tanzer in February, after reading A Pretty Mouth.

Review: House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill

Adam Nevill is an author who just keeps getting better and better. His third novel, The Ritual, won the August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel, and helped bring more attention to his two earlier novels, Banquet for the Damned and Apartment 16. Nevill's follow-up to The Ritual, Last Days, was a solid novel despite a lackluster ending. Now Nevill is back with House of Small Shadows, which is doubtless his best work yet.

First, the blurbs:

Catherine’s last job ended badly. Corporate bullying at a top television production company saw her fired and forced to leave London, but she was determined to get her life back. A new job and now things look much brighter. Especially when a challenging new project presents itself – to catalogue the late M H Mason’s wildly eccentric cache of antique dolls and puppets. Rarest of all, she’ll get to examine his elaborate displays of posed, costumed and preserved animals, depicting scenes from World War I. When Mason’s elderly niece invites her to stay at the Red House itself, where she maintains the collection, Catherine can’t believe her luck. Until his niece exposes her to the dark message behind her uncle’s ‘Art’. Catherine tries to concentrate on the job, but M H Mason’s damaged visions raise dark shadows from her own past. Shadows she’d hoped had finally been erased. Soon the barriers between reality, sanity and memory start to merge. And some truths seem too terrible to be real.

The Red House: home to the damaged genius of the late M. H. Mason, master taxidermist and puppeteer, where he lived and created some of his most disturbing works. The building and its treasure trove of antiques is long forgotten, but the time has come for his creations to rise from the darkness. Catherine Howard can’t believe her luck when she’s invited to value the contents of the house. When she first sees the elaborate displays of posed, costumed and preserved animals and macabre puppets, she’s both thrilled and terrified. It’s an opportunity to die for. But the Red House has secrets, secrets as dreadful and dark as those from Catherine’s own past. At night the building comes alive with noises and movements: footsteps, and the fleeting glimpses of small shadows on the stairs. And soon the barriers between reality, sanity and nightmare begin to collapse . . . 

The cover and blurbs should be enough to get any horror fan salivating. Dolls, puppets and taxidermy are all three creepy enough on their own, together they are a recipe for terror overload. The blurbs do not do the book justice, however, as the novel goes into much, much weirder territory.

Nevill finds success in creating the perfect atmosphere for paranoia. The Red House and the nearby, decrepit village of Magbar's Wood both exude a sense of being forgotten, tucked away into their own secret corner of England. Taking example from all the best haunted house stories, The Red House itself often transcends being simply a setting and becomes a character in it's own right. Populated by the highly eccentric, if not completely insane, niece of artist M.H. Mason as well as her mute, unfriendly housekeeper, The Red House soon becomes a prison for Catherine. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, from the muted, red lighting to the unpleasant smells. Mason's gruesome exhibits and creepy collection of puppets push an already tense, scary atmosphere into one of pure terror.

Catherine, the protagonist, is a deeply troubled individual. Early on in the book, her past is almost too convoluted, a long history including adoption, severe bullying, her best friend disappearing without a trace, mental health issues involving trances and a multitude of therapists, a humiliating departure from a previous job, and a relationship beset by issues such as an earlier miscarriage. Quite a lot to take in, but it's soon clear that Catherine is about as much of a wreck as they come, and is only barely holding it together. All the complexities of her life are almost overwhelming for the reader, but over time they all come together nicely.

When Catherine is invited to stay at The Red House while she values Mason's collection, things really take off. It's not soon before she feels more like a prisoner than anything, like a player on a stage who doesn't know her lines but can't help but playing out her role. Her predicament bleeds through the pages, so readers feel her claustrophobia and her worries. At times her reactions almost seem to be too much, as she is in hysterics for a good half of the novel, although having the feeling that one is stuck in a living nightmare will do that to most people.

House of Small Shadows is a great example of weird horror with a good blend of the psychological. Troubled Catherine starts to question what is real and what isn't as things become more and more bizarre. There's a certain turning point halfway through the novel where things immediately go into overdrive, and stay there, making the second half a wild nightmare trip with nowhere to turn. Puppets that may be much more, an ancient cult, otherwordly beings, things not being what they seem, this novel has tons to offer. Without a doubt Nevill's best work to date, and one that readers will lose sleep over. Highly recommended.

Review: A Night In The Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

One book I keep seeing come up as an essential October/Halloween read, is Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October, often listed alongside Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. The book is broken into 31 chapters, one for each day of October, and I know some readers make a ritual of reading this book by reading a chapter per day as the month goes by. I started the book a little late in the month to do that, so I tore through it in only two days.


Zelazny is known for being quite imaginative and witty, and this, his final novel, serves as prime example. Many characters from film/literature are present in this Victorian era tale of magic and dark gods, and it's apparent that the author had quite a fun time paying homage to many of his favorites. The premise is simple: once every several years, the full moon falls on Halloween, which means a ritual can be performed to open the gates allowing the Elder Gods to inherit the Earth. Thus, The Game is born, and consists of occult figures who either act as openers, seeking to open the portal, or closers, seeking to thwart the openers and keep the status quo. The Game itself is a bit complex, with many bizarre rules and strange magic rituals. It is not clear who is on what side until later in The Game, and figuring out where one another stands is a big part of it.

Each player has a familiar: Jack the Ripper has a dog, Crazy Jill the Witch has a cat, the Count has a bat, etc. In perhaps the author's boldest move with the book, the narrator is Snuff, Jack's dog familiar, who was not always a dog. Most of the book consists of interactions between familiars, as they constantly trade information, sometimes sharing quite a bit, and sometimes holding back some important tidbits. It's interesting to see these creatures who may or not be rivals, working together throughout the book as the great ritual nears.

Although the book has undertones of horror: Elder Gods who want to inherit and remake the world in their image, vampires and werewolves, dark magic rituals and strange creatures from other dimensions, it's far from being a frightening book. It's a good, fun romp, and readers will enjoy the wit and the guessing of who is on which side right up until the night of the ritual itself. Half the fun is just seeing all the references in the book: Lovecraft's Elder Gods and Dreamlands, The Count (Dracula), The Good Doctor (Dr. Frankenstein), Larry Talbot (The Wolfman), Rostov (Rasputin), Morris and MacCab (Burke and Hare).

A Night In The Lonesome October is definitely a book that deserves to be dubbed "essential October reading". It has also inspired many tributes, most notably Neil Gaiman's Only The End of the World Again, which brings Larry Talbot to Innsmouth in an attempt to foil the Elder God's awakening again.

Being a big fan of the book, Lovecraft e-Zine editor Mike Davis started an annual tradition last year, with issue #18 being a tribute to Zelazny's novel. Zelazny's son Trent provides the introduction, and has given his blessing to make the issue an annual occurrence. The new issue should be available soon!

Review: Holes For Faces by Ramsey Campbell

Ramsey Campbell is a giant in the field. Love or hate his work, there is no denying it. With nearly fifty years of experience under his belt, the Liverpool native has surely made his mark in weird fiction history. Starting his long career with Lovecraft Mythos stories, yet set in his own fictional section of England, Ramsey has thoroughly explored all aspects of the uncanny.

Holes For Faces is Campbell’s latest collection, recently published by Dark Regions Press, and contains fourteen stories from the past decade. Every story showcases Campbell’s talents for hinting at the weird, making the mundane horrifying, and conveying Campbell’s signature sense of paranoia. Campbell’s stories have a certain nightmarish qualities to them, and his protagonists are almost always alone with seemingly no one to turn to who would understand them.

The one common thread tying all these stories together are the themes of youth and age. Almost every story features either a child protagonist, or an older man protagonist, while some stories prominently feature both ends of the spectrum. Parallels are drawn between both ages, aging characters are sometimes treated simply, as if they havee regressed to small children.

The stories prominently featuring age as a theme often take a similar approach, in that the old men and women are usually suffering from confusion. The Address is a prime example. The main character is looking for a station, yet is entirely lost. The people he encounters offer little to no help, either sending him in a direction that leads to nothing, or speaking down to him as if he is a child or simple in the head. The man’s confused search soon becomes something much darker when he comes across what appears to be a school and decides to ask someone for directions. Recently Used is a tragic story, seeing an older man woken up in the middle night by a phone call, only to rush to the hospital to see his wife who is in critical condition. The story is a nightmare of anxiety, much like The Address, as the man rushes through the labyrinthine hospital unable to find the proper ward. Until the end it’s hard to tell whether the man is experiencing something supernatural, or if he is simply not mentally competent. In The Rounds, an old man tries to make his way home on a train, only to become obsessed with a suitcase a Muslim woman leaves behind. Suspecting terrorism the man does his best to keep the suitcase in sight, yet the story soon becomes an endless loop of him going through the same motions station after station, never able to escape. Keeping with the train themes, Passing Through Peacehaven features another older protagonist, who stops at a decrepit train station, where he awaits the next train. The station seems abandoned, although at times he hears a voice over the speakers and catches glimpses of what may be another person.

Campbell also writes youth well. Holes for Faces features a particularly nervous boy, on vacation in Italy with his parents. He already seems to be a bit of a nervous wreck, but when the family decides to take a tour of some catacombs, the boy becomes particularly fixated on holes where some corpses’ faces should be. The rest of the vacation becomes a nightmare, as holes in general start to become a source of extreme anxiety and fear for the boy. Chucky Comes to Liverpool, one of my favorites, plays with the idea of British urban legends about the killer doll Chucky from the Child’s Play films. The youth, as well as a coalition of moms, blame the Child's Play films for inspiring several violent crimes perpetrated by young men and women. The main character’s mother is a member of this coalition, and is doing her part to ban the “video nasties” while her son and his friend, in true fourteen year old fashion, decide they want to see what all the fuss is about. The boy becomes obsessed, then frightened with his obsession, and decides to do what he can to put an end to Chucky, ironically becoming the violent sociopath himself. Holding The Light is bit more straightforward. Two young teenagers visit a spooky tunnel, and take turns walking it in the dark. The Long Way follows a young boy who routinely goes across the council estate to help his paraplegic uncle with his grocery shopping. Things become complicated when the boy sees something moving about in an abandoned house and begins to fear going to his uncle's.

While Campbell covers both youth and old age, some of the most successful stories are the ones that combine both. There is often the continued theme of the old characters being misunderstood and looked down upon by their own children or their peers, usually seen as incompetent to take care of their grandchildren. This is first explored in Peep, in which a grandfather is once again haunted by a terrifying game from his childhood, which interferes with his being able to watch over his own grandkids. The Decorations, the first of two Christmas themed stories, draws strong parallels between a boy and his grandmother. Being of that age where the realities of the world start to become clear, the boy and his mother visit his grandparents for the holidays. It soon becomes apparent that his grandmother is losing it, and she has an obsessive fear of a creepy Santa Claus decoration. The boy struggles, on one hand he shares her fear and believes her, but on another hand he tries to “be a man” and help convince her it's alright. The end is ambiguous, and leaves readers wondering whether the boy truly experiences the supernatural, or if he simply shares his grandmother's madness. In contrast, Behind The Doors features the grandfather as the protagonist, instead of the grandson. The grandfather's bad memories of school return when his grandson brings home an advent calendar from the grandfather's old teacher. The grandfather's obsession with the calendar and the number game that the teacher plays leads him to lose everything. Going with the theme of mentally incompetent elders paired with youth, With the Angels has one of the book's darker endings. Two old women visit their families old house with some grandchildren, but one of the women is not quite up to the task of watching the kids.

Ramsey Campbell's skills are on full display with the collection, and the common theme of youth and old age make for a collection that is solidified in theme. Definitely a welcome addition to the master's bibliography.