An absolutely brutal and brilliant collection. Rejection is short: there are seven stories, of which the first five are substantial character studies,An absolutely brutal and brilliant collection. Rejection is short: there are seven stories, of which the first five are substantial character studies, and the last two a coda to those (the stories are all linked). The character studies, in the main, follow unhappy and self-sabotaging people: in ‘The Feminist’, a man who’s furious his status as a self-proclaimed feminist doesn’t get him dates; in ‘Pics’, a woman whose obsession with a crush destroys her life; in ‘Ahegao’, a gay guy who struggles not with his sexuality but with the fact that he can only get off on a particular, hard-to-articulate fetish. The broader themes here – dating, the internet, the soul-crushing combination of the two, repression, and, obviously, rejection – are explored in a lot of contemporary fiction, but it’s Tulathimutte’s writing that really makes it work: raw, shorn of any restraint, horribly true. The obvious point of comparison is Kristen Roupenian’s You Know You Want This – in particular, ‘The Feminist’ followed by ‘Pics’ reminded me of the one-two punch of ‘Cat Person’ and ‘The Good Guy’ – and I also thought a lot about Paul Dalla Rosa’s use of voice in An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life.
I received an advance review copy of Rejection from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
Dead Letters is an anthology with a brilliant concept which just happens to be weighted towards subgenres I don’t much enjoy. If you prefer monster stDead Letters is an anthology with a brilliant concept which just happens to be weighted towards subgenres I don’t much enjoy. If you prefer monster stories, cosmic horror, action/gore and dark fantasy over ghost stories and subtler shades of weird fiction, you might get more out of this book than I did. Which is to say I didn’t love it, but that’s not a value judgement, just a matter of taste. And of course there are some great stories here, especially ‘Re: The Hand (of god)’ by J.A.W. McCarthy, which uses emails and messages to tell the story of a woman who gets trapped at work... with a severed hand... that keeps getting bigger. How you even come up with an idea as original and strange as this story, I’ll never know. Also really liked ‘Something Cool Behind the Waterfall’ by Nat Reiher (similarly original), ‘Family Dirt’ by Justin Allec, ‘The Second Death’ by Christina Wilder, ‘Echo Chamber’ by Gemma Files and ‘Berkey Family Vacation 1988’ by Jacob Steven Mohr....more
I just couldn’t put this down. I read the whole thing across a single evening. Like its predecessor London Gothic, this is a disorientating, animate bI just couldn’t put this down. I read the whole thing across a single evening. Like its predecessor London Gothic, this is a disorientating, animate book, full of stories that both unnerve and amuse. The opener, ‘Welcome Back’, is a perfect case in point: it delves into academic office politics, with the narrator getting tangled up in accusations of bias when a colleague resigns. But believe me when I say you will never guess the twist. In ‘Simister’, a man’s attempt to do good deeds turns into a macabre comedy of errors. There are also some cool narrative experiments here, like ‘Disorder’, made up entirely of Joy Division lyrics, and ‘Strange Times’, which (seemingly) collects messages highlighting the homogeneity of language used to address the Covid-19 pandemic, the way phrases spread like... a virus, I suppose.
It’s the longer stories I really enjoyed, though. In ‘The Child’, a man is led on a strange journey after he visits a mysterious video shop. I always adore a lost film story, and this one is so gripping, so rich, I was ready to read it for hundreds of pages more. ‘Someone Take These Dreams Away’ is also a film story of sorts, a more haunting one, framing the experiences of its characters through described visuals from if.... ‘Zulu Pond’ has the most unpromising start (man moves back to Manchester, dwells on the memory of a girl he met for one night years ago), yet it unfolds into a brilliant exploration of the city’s waterlogged edgelands. In ‘The Apartment’, perhaps the most uncanny of the stories, the narrator hears voices above his top-floor flat and finds himself between reality and the ‘people texture’ of an architect’s rendering.
As with Daniel Carpenter’s recent collection Hunting by the River, having lived in Manchester undeniably added to the appeal of the stories for me – but that’s just a nice extra; Royle’s visions of the uncanny are incredibly compelling. I’m looking forward to the final volume of his city-based trilogy, which will be about Paris....more
This anthology has a starry list of contributors but it’s full of so-so stories, the kind where you think ‘hmm, that was fine’ and then promptly forgeThis anthology has a starry list of contributors but it’s full of so-so stories, the kind where you think ‘hmm, that was fine’ and then promptly forget everything about it. Best of the bunch is Helen Oyeyemi’s weird and entertaining ‘Hygiene’, told through messages and emails, in which a man suddenly finds a conversation with his girlfriend hijacked by a friend who makes a series of bizarre demands. It’s both original and genuinely Kafkaesque, where many of the stories manage only one of the two (or neither). ...more
I bought this within minutes of learning about its existence. A horror anthology based entirely around doppelgangers, doubles and changelings?! What aI bought this within minutes of learning about its existence. A horror anthology based entirely around doppelgangers, doubles and changelings?! What a great idea! Sadly, it gets off to a bad start: the first story doesn’t so much riff on Taxi Driver as steal from it (there’s taking inspiration from a film, and then there’s lifting some of the best dialogue in cinema history and putting it straight into your story; the latter doesn’t sit right with me). I hoped this would be the low point, but some of the others are even weaker, and the quality level rarely rises above ‘okay but not great’. Only one is truly strong: ‘Who Is That On the Other Side of You?’ by Timothy J Jarvis, which follows two lookalike men on an Antarctic expedition, is compelling and told in an effective format. Other than that... I don’t like being negative about stuff from small presses, but it’s hard to find many redeeming features here....more
Having long been a fan of Mariana Enríquez’s short stories – especially the superb Things We Lost in the Fire, the first of her books to be translatedHaving long been a fan of Mariana Enríquez’s short stories – especially the superb Things We Lost in the Fire, the first of her books to be translated into English – I was excited to get stuck in to this brand-new collection. ‘Face of Disgrace’ is creepy and genuinely disturbing at points; ‘Different Colours Made of Tears’ has good character work and a strong voice; both of them are anchored by original concepts. ‘A Sunny Place for Shady People’ is unexpectedly poignant, ‘A Local Artist’ starts strong and has a well-realised setting. Unfortunately, most of the rest don’t get much better than merely ‘fine’. There’s little here that lives up to Things We Lost in the Fire, or even the earlier, less polished The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
Not for the first time, I wonder why the synopsis and marketing of a book doesn’t reflect the actual content of the book. Sunny Place is sold as a collection of macabre stories exploring ‘love, womanhood, LGBTQ counterculture, parenthood and Argentina’s brutal past’. I’m not sure I could locate some of these themes in the book if I tried (did I miss whatever the ‘LGBTQ counterculture’ part was supposed to be?) This is a collection that leans heavily on body horror; it’s really the main theme that runs through most of the stories, so it’s weird this isn’t mentioned anywhere. Body horror is a specific flavour of horror, and while it has been present in Enríquez’s stories before, it’s more prevalent here, and much blunter too. This results in the type of horror story I admire rather than like. I appreciate it takes skill to get under the reader’s skin, to provoke disgust, but I don’t feel pleasantly spooked by these kind of stories, just a bit nauseous.
I’m tempted to wonder if something was lost in translation here – and not just the title (which sounds bizarrely cheesy in English, and strikes entirely the wrong tone for the book). Two of the stories are based on urban legends that are so well-known as to border on cliche; I initially assumed these must be less well-known in Argentina... except I’ve been looking through the reviews in Spanish, and a recurring criticism there is that Enríquez is trying too hard to tailor her style for Western audiences. Finally, to go back to the body horror thing: honestly, I didn’t enjoy the way many of these stories use disability or disease to incite fear. Maybe this has always been a feature of Enríquez’s writing and I haven’t picked up on it enough; maybe there’s just a lot more of it in this book. Either way, I wasn’t comfortable with it.
I received an advance review copy of A Sunny Place for Shady People from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
Carpenter’s debut collection is superb – a welcome addition to the canon of the urban weird. Set across Manchester, London and a few unloved corners oCarpenter’s debut collection is superb – a welcome addition to the canon of the urban weird. Set across Manchester, London and a few unloved corners of England, the book is full of great ideas executed well: ‘Stink Pit’ follows a group of hunt saboteurs who wonder if one of their number might be an undercover cop; in ‘Gods & Kings’, a man finds out his old uni mate has become a neo-Nazi. A few more experimental pieces – like ‘Flotsam’ and ‘Myrmidons’ – I found less effective; the stories here are at their best when tethered to a specific location. Carpenter is great at communicating a sort of authentic griminess that speaks to the reality of living in these places, rather than simply an uncomplicated nostalgia.
Two of the best are Manchester stories. ‘Hunting by the River’, about a man’s search for his missing sister, boasts some incredible creepy details. ‘Beneath the Pavement, the Beach’, with its series of parallel cities, is so ambitious it could easily be expanded into a novel. I’d already read the London-rental-nightmare story ‘Habitual’, which appears in the anthology For Tomorrow, and it fits really well into this collection – in fact, better here than in the anthology. Another favourite, ‘A Visitors Guide to Penge Magic (Annotated)’, is a spellbinding strange story that plays out across the pages of a doubly-annotated historical diary. Read this book if you’ve loved anything by Joel Lane or Gary Budden, The Magnus Archives or the Portals of London blog....more
(3.5) Favourite stories: ‘TRUTH SERUM’ by Jacob Steven Mohr, a cursed-TV-show story (so, automatic fave) spanning many different mediums; ‘The Troubli(3.5) Favourite stories: ‘TRUTH SERUM’ by Jacob Steven Mohr, a cursed-TV-show story (so, automatic fave) spanning many different mediums; ‘The Troubling History of Boddington’s Inlet’ by Rajiv Moté, a weird travelogue that riffs on Lovecraft; ‘~if the sky can crack~’ by Meep Matushima, in which we read backwards through LiveJournal entries from a troubled girl who’s begun to believe she can travel to an alternate world. Cool formats: a document that includes tracked changes (‘Heritage Assessment Daemonium’ by Chris Moss); an illustrated cheese journal (‘A Partial Record of Enchanted Cheeses I’ve Fed My Wife’ by Devin Miller); a series of increasingly odd product reviews (‘KentGent’ by Ren Wednesday). Once again, lots of great ideas and a really enjoyable anthology. See also issue 2 and issue 1!...more
(See also my review of Issue #2.) Again, some great ideas in here, with my personal standout being Daniel Simonson’s ‘The House of Fitted Stones’, in (See also my review of Issue #2.) Again, some great ideas in here, with my personal standout being Daniel Simonson’s ‘The House of Fitted Stones’, in which ex-residents of a mysterious house reunite on an online messageboard, discussing their strange yet unforgettable experiences. With research as the theme, several contributions run along the same lines: they gradually reveal a portrait of a dystopian near-future society through the author’s chosen format. This could describe a few of the best stories – ‘The Securities & Exchange Commission v. The Undying Sea’ by Simo Srinivas (found documents), ‘The Comments Section’ by Andy Tytler (which plays out in the comments on an online advice column), and ‘Welcome’ by Alexis Ames and Kat Veldt (chats and emails within a marketing company, with a similar vibe to Several People Are Typing). I also liked the increasingly creepy letters in Barrie Darke’s ‘Goblin Universe’. A few other stories have good concepts but are lacking in execution. I assume things had been refined a bit by #2 because I found that to be a stronger, tighter collection, but this was still extremely fun....more
I’m both annoyed that I didn’t know about Archive of the Odd until now, and excited I’ve discovered it and still have a couple more of these zines to I’m both annoyed that I didn’t know about Archive of the Odd until now, and excited I’ve discovered it and still have a couple more of these zines to read. All the stories collected here are told in unusual formats – really unusual. I’ve so often been disappointed when something described as ‘mixed media’ turned out to be a conventional narrative with a few emails or tweets thrown in. But these are truly original, and beautifully illustrated too. In ‘Avoiding Yesterday Best Look’, M Maponi crafts a sly tale of horror and consumerism through the medium of a WikiHow article. ‘Community Posting Board’ by Ellen Edwards has to be one of the most innovative – you can guess the format from the title, but it’s impressive how well this is made to work. Kiya Nicoll’s ‘Seventh Page of the Heartwell Gazette’ uses one page of a local newspaper over several dates to show how a mysterious newcomer unsettles a small town.
My favourite, though, was ‘Channelsea’ by Sarah Jackson, which uses the (relatively) conventional approach of found documents to tell the eerie story of an abandoned, potentially toxic island. I would happily read a whole book of this. Gabrielle Bleu’s ‘Birdwatching Notebook Found on a Colorado Trailhead’ builds tension and dread masterfully through nothing but bullet-pointed journal entries about which birds the narrator has spotted. Another standout is ‘The Recovered Files of Threnody Lane Elementary’ by Daniel Simonson, which vividly portrays a unique world via children’s art and other schoolwork.
They’re not all entirely successful: a couple of stories don’t quite manage to pull format and plot together, and while it looked great, I really struggled to read the handwriting in Nik Sylvan’s ‘Notes on a New Cephalopod by Ephraim T. Foxxe-Grace, Naturalist’. Overall, though, the standard is so high for something from such a tiny press; I just love the idea so much, I’m going to savour the other two (so far) issues and it’s a must-read if you love mixed-media fiction....more
The starting point for this anthology is Wellbrook High School, at which (we’re told) a terrible and infamous ‘Event’ took place in 1993, leaving onlyThe starting point for this anthology is Wellbrook High School, at which (we’re told) a terrible and infamous ‘Event’ took place in 1993, leaving only a handful of survivors. Styled as a recreation of the 1993 yearbook, For Tomorrow is a set of stories inspired by this premise. In many cases, surviving Wellbrook students are the protagonists, though some take a less direct approach. The setup also leaves a lot of room for stories that take place in different time periods, with some contributors opting for a nostalgic 90s setting and some the present day.
Three in particular stood out to me. ‘Amusements’ by Verity Holloway sees Libby setting herself up as a psychic in a fading British seaside town (a dependably great setting for horror); it seethes with sinister undercurrents and ambiguity. In ‘Habitual’ by Daniel Carpenter, a struggling Londoner is offered a job and flat in a luxurious, but weirdly empty, building. Featuring the best ending in the book, this story slots into the tradition of urban horror alongside Joel Lane and Gary Budden, and also reminded me a lot of Jonathan Sims’ Thirteen Storeys. Finally, there’s a pleasing 90s-urban-legend feel to ‘Hyperlink’ by Polis Loizou, which sees its internet-obsessed protagonist discovering some oddly addictive music online.
I also liked ‘Shadow Burdens’ by Charlotte Bond; tonally different from the rest, this story follows a woman who can see the shadow-like physical manifestations of people’s emotional burdens, and faces a dilemma when she meets someone with a different shadow to the rest. I knew I was going to like ‘Comments On This Video Have Been Disabled’ by James Everington based on the title alone, and it’s a great take on the ‘found footage’ trope that reminded me of Ray Cluley’s ‘6/6’. Speaking of which, ‘As I Want You To Be’ by Ray Cluley is another strong story, with what is perhaps the book’s best link to the events at Wellbrook, and Lucie McKnight Hardy’s ‘Carrion’ delivers an unnerving modern folk tale in the author’s signature style.
Part of me wishes there had been more ‘yearbook’ content to flesh out the nature of the Event and bring a more cohesive feel to the whole thing. But then again, the lack of specificity allows for a fun range of interpretations (working similarly to the Eden Book Society series from Dead Ink). I always find something interesting to read from Black Shuck Books, and they should definitely be on your radar if you’re interested in modern British horror writing....more
This might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set inThis might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set in Barrowbeck, a valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, progressing through time from the founding of its first settlement to its fate in the near future. As we learn more about Barrowbeck, the mood shifts from contemplative to ominous and back again. Barrowbeck contains some of the folk horror that’s become synonymous with the author’s name – but there’s also reflective historical fiction, hints of magic, a couple of excellent character studies, even a bit of sci-fi (the final story takes place in 2041).
The first five stories all have elements of scene-setting, though this doesn’t mean they’re uninteresting. ‘After the Fair’, which sees a girl attending a magical travelling fair where children can win tiny circus animals, has one of the most memorable premises in the book. ‘The Strangest Case’ is haunting; by contrast, ‘Hymns for Easter’ is one of the least chilling and most thoughtful, a story that effectively captures the shifting sands of history. It’s a theme that runs through the book: one version of the world is lost; all moves on.
‘Autumn Pastoral’ (my favourite) is such a wonderful story that it feels like a novel in itself. An art valuer visits a house in Barrowbeck that’s filled with paintings of the valley – part of a strange inheritance the house’s occupant left to an ex-lover as an act of spite. This is easily the creepiest and most atmospheric of the stories; I also felt it gave me a much stronger mental image of the valley than any of the others. In ‘Sisters’, it’s the rich character development that stands out. Its obsessive protagonist is captured so well, it hardly needs a macabre twist. ‘Covenant’ is vaguely Aickmanesque, loaded with portent: a house of mismatched believers, a curious New Year’s Eve tradition.
The strength of ‘An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade’ lies in how it leaves the reader wondering. What exactly is the nature of Jason’s sinister ‘calling’? Where does it take him, after 1970? I liked many of the details in ‘A Celestial Event’, though the ending let it down; it needed to go a bit further, I think. ‘The Haven’ is good but maybe a bit too obviously aiming to tick all the boxes on a folk horror checklist.
Then there’s ‘A Valediction’, which is most effective as a way of tying everything together. As two environmental inspectors traverse the now-flooded valley by boat, they see remnants of its history, places and names the reader will recognise from the earlier stories. It’s an elegy for both Barrowbeck and the world in which it – in which we – existed. It’s common for folk horror stories to emphasise that ‘the land remembers’; in Barrowbeck, the river keeps flowing.
(PS: If, like me, you’ve listened to Hurley’s BBC audio series Voices in the Valley and have been wondering whether the stories in this book are the same – not exactly. Some have the same outline, but almost all have been rewritten or expanded for this book, in many cases significantly so. The book also has more stories (13) than the series has episodes (10). Most of the stories are much better for being fleshed out.)
I received an advance review copy of Barrowbeck from the publisher through NetGalley....more
After loving Lisa Tuttle’s novella My Death last year, I knew I would have to read more of her work. I chose this Valancourt collection mainly becAfter loving Lisa Tuttle’s novella My Death last year, I knew I would have to read more of her work. I chose this Valancourt collection mainly because it’s recent (and, okay, yes, because the cover is nice), although the stories within are drawn from throughout Tuttle’s career.
What I started to notice by the halfway point is that Tuttle writes very female horror. I don’t know if that’s quite the right term; I wouldn’t say 'feminist’ fits – there’s nothing political about many of these stories, the women in them are often subservient – but women’s experiences are very much at the book’s heart. A number focus on motherhood, birth or some proxy for it, and this is frequently combined with a strong theme of body horror: a dead-but-still-growing baby in ‘Born Dead’, inexplicable bleeding in ‘A Birthday’, cancerous pregnancies in ‘My Pathology’. In ‘Replacements’, women begin keeping vampiric animals as pets, while the men in their lives are repulsed to the point of being driven to kill the creatures. Sometimes there’s also a disquieting merging of these themes with sex, most memorably in ‘Food Man’, where a girl storing a mountain of rotting food under her bed is only the start of the weirdness. As with a number of the above, I didn’t quite enjoy this story but I couldn’t stop thinking about its dark, gnarled depths.
So many of these reminded me of Robert Aickman’s stories in that I squirmed my way through them, skimming the most disgusting bits, but am sure I will remember them for much longer than I do the type of stories I merely ‘like’. This is apt, as The Dead Hours of Night contains at least one explicitly Aickman-inspired work: ‘The Book That Finds You’, which I first read in the anthology Aickman’s Heirs. I loved revisiting it: an obscure horror writer, a literary treasure hunt, a cursed manuscript; perfect. ‘Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear’ exists in a similar vein, simple but extremely effective in its depiction of a couple drawn to a peculiarly elusive house.
My favourite in the book was the earliest story, the dread-filled folk horror ‘Where the Stones Grow’. It’s interesting reading reviews and seeing that others seem to have found this one formulaic – whatever this says about me, I adored it! I felt it had a fantastic atmosphere, with some of the dark magic of Elizabeth Hand’s ‘Near Zennor’. I also loved ‘The Dream Detective’, about a man who meets a boring girl at a party, then can’t stop seeing her in his dreams (great ending in this one). ‘Closet Dreams’, in which a kidnapped girl recalls her impossible escape, is a brilliantly executed concept and truly disturbing.
I really liked the beginning of ‘Vegetable Love’, but felt frustrated by the disappearance of the best element (the woman Hannah meets at the church halfway through. Bottom of my list was ‘Mr Elphinstone’s Hands’, a historical story about a young woman who starts producing ectoplasm; again, it’s pretty disgusting, but in this case the story is dull and much longer than it needs to be. Yet for some other reviewers it seems to have been the highlight of the collection – which just goes to show how personal short stories are. Although a couple here didn’t work for me, I find Tuttle’s short fiction powerful, and her best work unforgettable....more
‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, pe‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. It embodies the ‘loss and longing’ theme: thwarted desire, the ache of missed chances. My personal favourite was ‘The Rental Sister’, a short, creepy, urban-legend-style tale in a colloquial style, about a young woman in Tokyo who briefly works in the titular role (designed to help hikikomori ease back into the world). ‘Giallo’ is everything you could want in a story called ‘Giallo’, capturing every aspect of the film genre so perfectly and vividly, you’ll never need to watch one again. The queasy, bloody ‘Conversion’ takes a more brutal tack, following a perverted therapist who successfully ‘converts’ an unhappily gay young man, but with horrifyingly extreme results.
I liked ‘The Oestridae’, in which two siblings are blindsided when a previously-unheard-of aunt turns up shortly after their mother’s disappearance. I couldn’t get on with the indulgent ‘The Cenacle’, and ‘My Heart’s Own Desire’ left me with a lot of questions. There’s also the fact that a large proportion of the book is taken up by a novella, ‘Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol’. It’s well-written, and a good expression of the collection’s project, so it doesn’t feel out of place; but it’s a big chunk of pages, and I felt I was missing something – some essential context that might have made it more satisfying.
This is a collection united by theme more than anything else, so it’s not easy to find any one point of comparison. After reading ‘The Closet Game’ and ‘The Oestridae’, I felt it was going to be a similar book to What Makes You Think You’re Awake? by Maegan Poland and The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise. Yet ‘Ceremonials’ and ‘Giallo’ might slot quite neatly into a Carmen Maria Machado collection, while at other points (e.g. ‘DST (Fall Back)’) I was reminded more of Lovecraftian stylists such as John Langan. In the end No One Dies from Love was a mixed bag for me, simply because the subject matter and particular brand of horror weren’t always to my taste – the stories lost me whenever they veered too far towards dark fantasy – but it was a book that left me impressed with Levy’s skills as a storyteller, and sure I’ll still read more from the author....more
Still working out how I felt about this. The effect of one of Levy’s stories on its own is like a short sharp shock but collectively it can be the oppStill working out how I felt about this. The effect of one of Levy’s stories on its own is like a short sharp shock but collectively it can be the opposite: deadening. Not necessarily a bad thing; I think that effect fits in well with the style and themes of the collection, the numbness of a life lived online, the desensitisation of exposure, the assertion that ‘nothing is stable, especially not the self’. But I also can’t help thinking the stories work better as I originally encountered (some of) them – in isolation, on websites – than they do collected in a book. Because of that (?) I still think the ones I read that way (‘Cancel Me’, ‘Good Boys’, ‘Internet Girl’) are the best. There’s an insanely good run in the middle, though, with ‘Cancel Me’ followed by ‘Shoebox World’ and ‘Z was for Zoomer’, like three shots of adrenaline in a row.
I received an advance review copy of My First Book from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
Far more in line with what I expected from this collection, and probably the best of the bunch – a surprise to me, as I’ve often found Malerman’s writFar more in line with what I expected from this collection, and probably the best of the bunch – a surprise to me, as I’ve often found Malerman’s writing clunky and unsubtle elsewhere. The tale of a location-specific urban legend (Opso, the ‘demon imp’ that frequents a particular forest bridge) is impressive in its restraint and originality; I also enjoyed how the protagonist’s hobby of filmmaking was woven into every part of the plot....more
After his wife has a miscarriage, an increasingly unhinged would-be dad gets obsessed with an old pram, not stopping to question where it might have cAfter his wife has a miscarriage, an increasingly unhinged would-be dad gets obsessed with an old pram, not stopping to question where it might have come from. An uninteresting concept, flatly executed, though there are a few entertaining touches such as the neighbouring community of ‘Sin-Planters’. I was planning to read all the stories in Amazon’s ‘Creature Feature’ collection, but this was so banal that it put me off the idea....more
‘Saint Barbara’ by Nina Allan. You knew I was going to say this – but it’s genuinely my favourite of hers in My favourite stories from this anthology:
‘Saint Barbara’ by Nina Allan. You knew I was going to say this – but it’s genuinely my favourite of hers in years, a story I wanted to read again as soon as I’d finished it (and putting it first in the book is a bold move because it sets the bar high). Two women meet at a book signing, become unlikely friends, and encourage one another in their dreams of revenge. And then there are all the details: Deb’s love of the writer Olena Pohorska, and her own writerly aspirations; her assessment of Barbara’s appearance, and how that first impression evolves; the imagined stories, the imagined art. Deb’s descriptions of Pohorska’s work feed, playfully, into Allan’s fictional universe like an ouroboros – as though Allan is speaking to her dedicated reader, or maybe that’s just how I felt, but it fits so neatly with the story that I couldn’t stop thinking it. Like all the best short stories, ‘Saint Barbara’ feels like a whole world in miniature.
‘Under Cover of Darkness’ by Stephen Volk. While it’s essentially a fictionalised version of real events, this is a narrative Volk makes his own, adding a twist scarcely more horrible than the true story.
‘Facts Concerning the Disappearance of the Orloff Six’ by Alyssa C. Greene. A plausible urban legend, smartly told, full of foreboding.
‘The Service’ by Ally Wilkes. A Spanish waitress in a run-down English seaside town, a shabby 1970s hotel, a missing girl... I’m really looking forward to reading a collection of short stories by Wilkes one day as she is stunningly good at capturing atmosphere and mood succinctly.
‘The Fig Tree’ by Lucie McKnight Hardy. An excellent example of the family drama/folk horror combination that is becoming this author’s trademark.
Of the rest, I liked Ronald Malfi’s ‘Remember Me’, which nails the atmosphere of Halloween (a surprisingly rare thing), and Carly Holmes’ uncomfortable and deeply terrifying ‘Dodger’.
There are 20 stories in this book, which in my opinion is a few too many; I prefer my anthologies more tightly edited and selective. It also (broadly speaking) leans away from the ghostly, strange and ambiguous and more towards the supernatural, animate and gory, so most of it just isn’t in line with my tastes. I admit I was starstruck by Allan’s name (and the generally impressive list of contributors!) and didn’t pause to think about whether the concept was likely to appeal. Every stripe of horror is represented here – no doubt a plus for lots of readers, but this is not the best anthology to pick up if you have strong ideas about which subgenres you love and hate.
I received an advance review copy of Darkness Beckons from the publisher through NetGalley....more
(3.5) Much better than its predecessor, 2021’s The Haunting Season – if not entirely free of its flaws. This time, there are some new contributors(3.5) Much better than its predecessor, 2021’s The Haunting Season – if not entirely free of its flaws. This time, there are some new contributors and four more stories, but still no credited editor; this means the issues of the first book are somewhat repeated. Every story here has a historical setting, with most attempting to conjure up the atmosphere of a traditional Victorian ghost story. There is, again, a tendency towards clunky moralising which often makes it easy to guess where a story is going from the very start. But it seems the slightly more specific brief – the tales here focus on ‘Christmas or Advent’ rather than just ‘winter’ – has helped bring out a bit more originality.
At least the contributors seem to be having fun with it this time: Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s ‘Inferno’, Imogen Hermes Gowar’s ‘A Double Thread’ and Susan Stokes-Chapman’s ‘Widow’s Walk’ are all enjoyable, despite following similar lines. ‘The Gargoyle’ by Bridget Collins treads familiar ground too, but it’s beautifully crafted and pretty satisfying; I’d read it again. Stuart Turton’s ‘The Master of the House’ manages a surprisingly compelling fairytale-like narrative. In ‘Carol of the Bells and Chains’, Laura Purcell really commits to the theme by adding Krampus into the mix – of all the stories, this one feels the most like Christmas horror.
For me, three stories stood out, and in each case it’s their unpredictability that makes them notable. Andrew Michael Hurley impresses again with his Aickmanesque ‘The Old Play’: it plunges the reader straight into a disconcertingly off-kilter community in which the titular play, a sinister parable, must be performed every year. Catriona Ward’s ‘Jenkin’ is refreshingly weird, following a young woman who sees a strange half-human creature every time she tells a lie. (It also has a great title + first line combo.) Natasha Pulley’s ‘The Salt Miracles’ is as lovely as it is horrible, and feels the most complete, its effectiveness a product of the author’s gorgeous writing and knack for a heart-wrenching detail rather than any cheap thrills....more
These are stories of lonely men in bleak landscapes; weird fiction, skirting dark fantasy, likely to appeal to fans of Thomas Ligotti. ‘Black Bark’ isThese are stories of lonely men in bleak landscapes; weird fiction, skirting dark fantasy, likely to appeal to fans of Thomas Ligotti. ‘Black Bark’ is a startling opener – not least because its placement means there is a murky and unsettling implication that the ensuing tales are, in fact, part of Sugg’s story. ‘The Cabin’ and ‘Grottor’ put more meat on the bones of this approach: dismal settings, isolated places, chillingly ambiguous statements. ‘Contagion’ is probably the strongest story here, and feels like a truly complete work, but it cemented my feeling that this style is not for me. Too many barren places and grim injuries, too little sense of the characters’ inner lives. Still, the atmosphere is superbly crafted. (And the Black Shuck Shadows mini-collections are perfect for sampling an author’s work in exactly this way.)...more
