As we writhe through tumultuous life, shoring up the will to carry on, there will be events that seemingly come out of nowhere to latch onto us, submeAs we writhe through tumultuous life, shoring up the will to carry on, there will be events that seemingly come out of nowhere to latch onto us, submerge us, drag us down to the murky depths from which it is all but impossible to reemerge. We will be floating along, blissfully unaware of a lurking, mindless, and revolting terror. It will not be malicious, but it will do what it does regardless of our desires, plans, or lack of understanding as to how, or why, it operates. The question of why is worthless. It is and does because it is and does.
Such is the underlying encrusted thrust of Sacculina. Jim lost his mother to an aggressive, ravenous cancer, subsequently losing, in part, his brother to prison and his father to resultant, chronic depression.
Once reunited, they go on a fishing expedition in a futile attempt to tread toward some sense of normalcy and reclaim some former peace; to transcend and outdistance the gathering misery surrounding them, threatening to engulf them. They are broken, sunken people, but solemnly happy to be together.
A primordial, parasitic cast of crustaceans begin latching onto their boat, quick and antagonistic. All seems lost, again.
This is not pulpy monster carnage (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as is my refrain). It is a grief-driven tale of oceanic horror done incredibly well. Do not treat these vicious barnacles as mere metaphor. They will liquify you for your pretentious disregard.
I wished for more after finishing, an epilogue perhaps, but soon settled on satisfaction that as contained as the story was, it did not require a safe docking....more
This story was like a twenty minute, high-intensity workout. It’s brief, grueling, and damn do you feel it when you’re finished.
Good ol’ Joe has alwayThis story was like a twenty minute, high-intensity workout. It’s brief, grueling, and damn do you feel it when you’re finished.
Good ol’ Joe has always put story first—and this is one bizarre story. He isn’t preachy or didactic. As more and more modern literature of all genres creeps in that direction, it becomes all the more retroactively refreshing to read stories that are just cool stories. Not patronizing or pandering. Not reactionary. No requirements for a ‘likeable’ protagonist, or a ‘subversion/deconstruction’ of tropes. No overt, condescending political message. Just unadulterated, unhinged creativity and gorgeous, bloody prose.
Paul Marder (which may be an antonym of martyr) was a scientist partially responsible for the destruction of earth and the death of his own daughter. His wife, an artist who now despises him, gouged a tattoo/scarification of their late daughter’s image engulfed in a mushroom cloud onto his back which bleeds from the eyes after strenuous movement.
He monotonously documents his misery and the horrific events happening around him in his journal. He is a dead man in all but the flesh.
Moaning, black-brained, human hunting, organ-supplanting plants inherit the earth as Paul has pseudo-incestuous, guilt-ridden dreams about his daughter.
For such a short story, the world is so much better realized than a lot of post-apocalyptic, dystopian epics I’ve tried slogging through. It presages Scott Smith’s The Ruins and is a wondrously distressing Freudian fever dream....more
I am genuinely mystified by how contentious this novel seems to have been since its publication. I’ve never looked at the reviews on GR and goodness gI am genuinely mystified by how contentious this novel seems to have been since its publication. I’ve never looked at the reviews on GR and goodness gracious was there some weird sociopolitical and author/character conflation balderdash infiltrating the discourse. I don't have a particular jötunn in the fight, but Loki must be behind it because it reeks of mischief.
My experience with Nevill's breakout was one of solitary revelry.
I am sometimes reluctant to elaborate on books that are more personally purposeful for various reasons, but I may have to work on a more long-form advocacy since I so frequently recommend The Ritual....more
*Update: Resurrecting this review a decade in the making in order to revisit the material and finish the full run of stories this Halloween*
In some ma*Update: Resurrecting this review a decade in the making in order to revisit the material and finish the full run of stories this Halloween*
In some manner my literary, musical, and aesthetic sensibilities transmogrify with the season. Once the autumnal gods blow forth the cool air, carrying with it their fragrances of dry leaves, patchouli, apple spice, and the harvest, and pumpkins begin to grace doorsteps, the numinous in me is sustained by clichéd images of chilling awe; graveyards (with or without decayed hands rising therefrom), howling wolves silhouetted by full moons, implied malevolent cackling of jack-O’-lanterns, as well as expectedly evocative music like Toccata and Fugue, Swan Lake Op. 20, even The Monster Mash, or the Misfits, my life is unabashedly enraptured by the nostalgia of manufactured fright. I eat candy corn. I watch horror movies (and Hocus Pocus), and of course, I read material that will ensure the fond memories persist until a headstone of my own may contribute to the moon-lit October backdrop of someone else's dreadful delights.
This will be an intermittently written review throughout the season. I will try to review the stories and celebratory Halloween recollections of this collection as I read them. Until then, I would like to wish you a wonderfully macabre season and October:
The Black Pumpkin by Dean Koontz: It's not difficult to revel in the hokey nature of a story about an accursed jack-O'-lantern, purchased from a creepy old pumpkin carver, that wreaks havoc on a family, apparently in the name of justice, because as we all know, "you get what you give", which was reiterated I think one-hundred-and-forty-two times in its 29 pages. The story of course is by the poor-man's Stephen King, and it is not the least bit genuinely frightening, but tell it to your children as an October bedtime story, and you'll probably awaken to their screams at midnight more than once.
A Moonlit Night with Rats by Elizabeth Engstrom: I can't recall the precise year I decided I was too old for Trick or Treating, and I don't know why I can't remember. I don't know if I thought it was stupid, or I was too cool for it, or if I abandoned it with some melancholy. Whatever the case, I miss it now. I retrospectively regret the hanging-out aspect of Halloween in the teenage years, because I was miserable trying to behave as if it were no big deal. But like Elizabeth here, who tells of her 13-year-old-and-thus-too-old-for-kiddy-Halloween-fun story of getting abandoned in a dump by her brothers as a prank, I managed, or learned how to, add to the array of Halloween memories as I was living each year's experiences, perhaps with some imagined magic, as Elizabeth fondly summons, "The dump had a certain majesty in the Halloween moonlight."
Lantern Marsh by Poppy Z. Brite: I can relate to this one, albeit on a significantly lesser scale, and with no intentions of retaliation or vengeance on my part. There is this house a couple blocks away from mine, and ever since I moved in, I would walk by it when I took my dogs for walks because there was a tree right in front of the house that obstructed a view of the front door, as well as most of the porch. The tree was dark like a Goya. It begged to be garnished with creepy and horrible things, and ideally, would be home to an unsettlingly glowing-eyed owl when all but a few leaves had fallen. The owl would glare at me, eyes impossibly luminescent, everything silent save for the clanging of my dogs’ leashes and a sputtering hoo-hoo to give me additional-to-the-weather chills. I would be unable to discern if it served as a threat or a warning. I would continue walking, the owl’s eyes transfixed on me until I attained a distance outside of its field of vision, which may have been a distance that didn’t exist. I would stand across the street, staring at this magnificent, natural inspiration of terror, as if the thing existed for me. The gentleman who dwelled inside the house merely a maintenance man for what had been mine to discover. But, as if it were all a ploy, a conspiracy to uproot my wonder, the tree has since been subjected to the same. It is no longer there to send me along my autumnal moonlit strolls with frights of fancy. Like Noel in this tale, who watched the lanterns glow over the marsh “as if they were his own personal light show”, it seemed particularly significant on Halloween. However, unlike Noel, the obsession that consumed him, understandably, was going to be taken away by corporate sprawl. The marsh was purchased and now bore a sign declaring it to be the future sight of Marshwood Mall, in that typically ironic tradition of naming developments in faux-honor of what was destroyed to make it. Noel did not stand for this, nor did the lanterns. There is no comparison in egregiousness between the story and my own example, but I miss that tree.
Nicknames: A Hallowe’en Reminiscence by Rick Hautala: Coming off, at first, more like an old curmudgeon, which I am fast becoming, it was interesting to hear a true account of an incident of unstable town drunks threatening kids for causing some mischief on mischief night. It sounds scary. I’ve been physically threatened by cadres of belligerents before. Rick says that such memories as these (of the very few that he remembers, ostensibly) propels him to write the stories he writes as an attempt to ‘bring it all back.
A Condemned Man by Steve Rasnic Tem: Imagine with me, if you will, after all these store-bought, lower-than-pajama quality, with food-container quality plastic half-masks, and just a shoe-lace quality string keeping them loosely strapped to their heads; after several of the same consumerist, corporation-dictated costumes of (to be culturally relevant), Avengers, Angry Birds, Cheerleaders and Disney Princesses, something shows up on your doorstep wearing a pillowcase over his head, and twined rope tied in a noose around his neck. You ask him what he is supposed to be, and he responds, ‘a condemned man’. I love the outsider kids.
Conversations in Dead Language by Thomas Ligotti: Some stories in anthologies are doomed to be forgotten, going unnoticed if the pages were cleanly ripped out (page numbers notwithstanding); it’s to be expected. What is not to be expected is for one of said forgettable stories to be written by such a highly regarded terrorizing artist. Ligotti is an underground horror titan, but if the best he can do to honor Halloween is a vaguely supernatural murder mystery after vaguely supernatural things occur every Halloween, count me not among the aficionados. Some terror tellers are more prosperous with novels than short tales. I hope this is the case for Ligotti, otherwise I may not fit in with my underground cretins.
My Favorite Halloween Memory by Gary A. Braunbeck: Being chastised and cast out of class by nuns for having an Alice Cooper varnish stained on my face only for it to be vindicated by a hip (note that this is 1974) priest who would provide a cool-guy thumbs up and mutter "Under My Wheels kicks ass" would probably lead me to the conclusion, at 17, that "God dug Halloween" as well.
My Favorite Halloween Memory by Jack Ketchum: Another two pager which hardly merits a synopsis of any kind, but the idea of coupling treats with philosophical quotes is pretty damn good. Kudos, Mr. hippy Ketchum of the early 70’s.
Yesterday’s Child by Thomas F. Monteleone: Despite the fact that memories are mostly false, they are a large part of what makes us, us. They manifest later as regrets often, as dreams of the past self (one of many, all different from the many of which we are composed now) linger on a synapse in a desperate attempt to grasp onto a formative apparition, which by definition will be elusive forevermore. Mistakes are not so much mistakes as a different self disagreeing with a former self about a decision, course, or commitment which that particular former self engaged in. Occasionally I see myself, when I wasn’t me, in my homemade dragon costume on an impossible night of purplish autumn idealism , marching and breathing fire on events that will not have occurred until I have the capacity to realize that I didn’t want to set that fire after all. At least not the dominant me now.
Zombies by Hugh B. Cave: Cave lived in Haiti for a few years and was taken to a ‘zombie farm’. There is a poison powder that can be administered to people which causes them to exhibit all the symptoms of death. That person is then buried, dug up again and provided with a restorative drug, but can then be commanded, like a slave. Similar to the exposition of the book The Serpent and the Rainbow by the ethnobotanist(?) Wade Davis, these mind-altering, or perhaps more appropriately labeled, mind-deadening drugs are ostensibly real, and used for rather sinister purposes. How much of it is Haitian legend, I cannot say, nor could Cave, but it lead him to write a story, which he plugged, and for which he provided a synopsis and conclusion. I suppose I don’t need to read it now. Oh, and his visit took place on Halloween, so it’s not just because of the zombies that it is contained in this anthology.
The Whitby Experience by Simon Clark: Impressive tale of oceanic terror; one of my favorite brands of terror. I will merely issue a recommendation of this story along with my favorite, somewhat Bradburian paragraph:
‘Through the glass she heard the soulful call of the foghorn. Being a city dweller the sound was alien to her; gravely mournful, too. She couldn’t escape the notion that she heard some primeval creature that lay dying on the shore as it called to its long lost mate.
This perfectly describes how I feel sitting on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota (not quite oceanic, but still), and hearing the horns bellow as I stare out into that other world, the sea, and imagine the ancient, undiscovered creatures that dwell beneath, surfacing for a moment to issue a resounding, somber call, with my personal wonderment being the sole beneficiary.
Halloween Memories by Christopher Golden: Won’t be the last reminiscence in this collection to feature an enviable neighborhood house with its own haunted lore.
In-Between: A Halloween Poem by Ray Bradbury: Attic or basement For Hallowed placement, No substitutes For Bradburian youth. No family smiles Which October reviles. No warm meals, Only darkness reveals The wonderful terror That we can all share. I know what you mean, Mr. Bradbury.
Gone by Jack Ketchum: A night of boredom on Halloween reveals a past tragedy of a kidnapped child (one of many recurring themes in this anthology), and only one less-than-considerate comment to throw a woman into a grief-stricken violent rampage against the only trick-or-treaters she receives for the evening. Ketchum knows that sadness is an inherent component of terror.
That Smell in the Air by Alan M. Clark: This title is probably the most important part of the story. There’s nothing like closing your eyes on an October evening and letting the scent enter you like a possessive spirit. Clark is the kind of dreamer who lives in Halloween land all year round; the type of guy who becomes a special effects guy for monster movies. When you can’t let go of the Halloween spirit; if it has its blissful barbs embedded in you even after that smell in the air dissipates; why not cook St. Patrick’s Day dinner painted up as the wolfman?
Yesterday’s Witch by Gahan Wilson: Why couldn’t I have grown up on a street where a witch was alleged to have lived? I needn’t fret about such things now, not only because I am well past childhood, but also because witches are nonsense, and I shouldn’t waste any mental capacity wishing they were real. I can’t even bring myself to sputter out some lame pronouncement such as, I believe in witches one day out of the year. It doesn’t make any sense, but I used to be impressed by magic tricks involving coins. I know better now, but if a good-intentioned curmudgeon who lived in a moldy, grimed-over-windowed house could have pulled something over on me, such as turn my treat sack into a breathing creature that caused me to drop it and run screaming, I would be grateful still, especially grateful, in fact, knowing it couldn’t have been real. I would love that witch forever.
A Short History of Halloween by Paula Guran: Here is a concise piece of which I am sure plenty of books share the same subject, in addition to some History Channel specials. We all know the key vocabulary to utilize in a discussion about the origins and evolution of Halloween: All Hallows’ Eve, saints’ day, Samhain, Druidic, Celtic, primal fears of death but there are some cool facts about the history that I wasn’t aware of, or that I forget year after year. For instance, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on Wittenberg Castle Church on the 31st of October in 1517, and the subsequent reformation saw that the observance of saints’ day was expunged, and mostly lead to the destruction of celebrations in Europe. As for me, there are no superstitions interspersed with my love for the season, or that ‘hallowed’ night, at least not anymore, and am content with the opportunity to confront and mock death. It’s false power, but the absurdity of life only enhances the sensation.
The Last Halloween by Poppy Z. Brite: “If you’re reading this book, odds are you’ve also read Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, and I certainly can’t top his descriptions so I won’t even try –but that’s how it was.” There is much pride to be felt in being a, what I will deem, Halloween geek, which often goes hand-in-hand with being a horror geek, and we all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the late Halloween prophet, Bradbury.
Mask Game by John Shirley: A family is forced to relive brutal secrets from their past as a mysteriously familiar stranger shows up on Halloween night to play a game involving wearing masks of their younger selves. Do you ever conjure the setting of a story you’re reading from some arbitrary place from your past? This story, for me, took place in the living room of my former babysitter’s/neighbor’s house, and I somehow felt like I was watching it all, first person, through the window, from outside, in my costume, just wanting some candy. It was spooky that this was happening right next door to me, and that I was so young while reading this tale.
Criswell Conquers the Alien Elvis-‘Nappers by Tom Piccirilli: Sometimes I think I’d like to be a paranormal investigator. Not like those ubiquitous mooks on those faux-reality shows, who go in with advanced equipment and instruments (none of which are made for detecting supernatural entities), and an already affixed mindset of ‘ghosts are here, and we need to find them’. No, I mean real investigators who seek real answers for strange goings-on, like Joe Nickel. Then, I could get my frightful kicks and simultaneously work at debunking nonsense. Joe Nickel debunked the alleged Mackenzie House haunting, and revealed The Amityville hoax. Tom Piccirilli went to the Overlook Hotel in Estes Park, which is of course the setting for The Shining, and which ostensibly has some actual haunted legends attached to it. I think we have a responsibility to seek the truth, in any situation, and the whiners who claim that real investigators and debunkers are merely ruining the fun, and destroying mystery and wonder, it seems to me, can’t see what Richard Dawkins has called The Magic of Reality. This is how my rationalism and my sense of wonder come together in this splendid way.
1942 by Jack Cady: Another local witch legend of which to be envious.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Out of the Dark by David B. Silva:
Pumpkins and Circumstance Robert Morrish:
Heavy Set by Ray Bradbury:
Year of the Witch by William F. Nolan:
Where Juliet Went: A Halloween Memory by Michael Cadnum:
Boo by Richard Laymon:
A Halloween Memory, Age Four, Hawaii, 1961 by Douglas Clegg:
Fellini and Halloween by Ray Bradbury:
Masks by Douglas E. Winter:
My Favorite Halloween Memory by Stanley Wiater:
A Redress for Andromeda by Caitlin R. Kiernan:
The Santa of Halloween by Richard Laymon:
The Circle by Lewis Shiner:
“First of All, It was October…” An Overview of Halloween Films by Gary A. Braunbeck:
Halloween Dreams by Yvonne Navarro:
Pay the Ghost by Tim Lebbon:
Halloween 25 by Kim Newman:
Buckets by F. Paul Wilson:
My favorite Halloween memory by Owl Goingback:
Needles and Razor Blades by Dennis Etchison:
Orchestra by Stephen Mark Rainey:
Halloween Companion Piece by David B. Silva:
Eyes by Charles L. Grant:
Ugh! Good Grief! R.I.P Pepe, Charlie Brown! By Kelly Laymon:
My Favorite Halloween Memory by Simon Clark:
Deathmask by Dominick Cancilla:
Halloween Frights by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:
Some Witch's Bed by Michael Marshall Smith:
Cyanide and Pixie Stix by Wayne Allen Sallee:
The Trick by Ramsey Campbell:
October! by Ed Gorman:
Porkpie Hat by Peter Straub:
Trick-Or-Read: A Reader's Guide to Halloween Fiction by Stefan Dziemianowicz:
