Countdown to Halloween 2012
- Thread starter Hobbit
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You know, I'm sure I've read a recent vampire story like that, but can't put my finger quite on it. Joe Hill, perhaps?
And I'm now also trying to think how much Laird Barron I've read. Think I have read a short story or two, but can't remember what. Another recommendation to add to the list.
@Drakular1890 "lol im gnna bite ur neck"
@Innosintbelle "omg u freak unfollowedddd"
Like that, Randy?
That's it!!!
Mark: Even as I typed it, I wondered if someone would already know of a story like that.
Randy M.
THE GRIN OF THE DARK by Ramsey Campbell (Tor, hc –2008; mmpb—2009)
Simon Lester lost his job as writer for a magazine devoted to film criticism after a piece by his boss, Colin Vernon, prompted law suits that shut the magazine down by freezing its assets. Since then, his name connected to the scandal, Lester has been unable to find work in his field, including the job alluded to in the opening lines above.
Wallowing in a part-time job at a gas station, a stroke of luck brings Lester both work and an advance: A former student at the London University at Royal Holloway College has died, leaving money for the college to begin publishing books, specifically books on film. The editor of this venture, his former professor, Rufus Wall, wants Lester to expand his thesis and prepare it for a larger audience. Lester’s thesis dealt with forgotten film pioneers and stars, and Wall is especially enthusiastic about filling in the sketchy biography of the silent film star, Tubby Thackeray, real name, Thackeray Lane, whose films have all disappeared even as their reputation has become tied to scandal.
During his search Lester comes across disturbing stills and clips from the movies; both as a music hall entertainer and later as a film comedian, Thackeray’s performances are said to have evoked violent reactions. Eventually, Lester tracks down copies of the films and they burrow into his consciousness, scenes and images dominating his thoughts and dreams. For Lester Tubby’s rotundity, his long lean legs and especially his pale white grinning face become a recurring sight, appearing in unlikely surroundings outside of the films even as the impression of distant laughter haunts him.
The Grin of the Dark is not a merging of genres, but a horror novel from the center of the genre by a master of the form. Still, like so many horror stories post-Lovecraft (or, perhaps more accurately, post-Machen), there is the fantasy element of other realms, other realities unrecognized impinging on our own. Lester’s researches into the films of Tubby Thackeray bring him into contact with an insidious, grinning evil that undermines and corrupts one’s sense of reality. Early in the novel Campbell signals the direction of the novel when Wall mentions what Lester hears as the “Tickle bequest,” the money left for the publishing project by Charles Stanley Tickell. From that point on Campbell plays with language and the sounds of words, creating confusion and miscommunication between his characters through multiple meanings and the faulty interpretations the characters apply to maintain and bolster the context of their reality, even as Simon Lester’s reality slowly changes. Supporting this slow alteration, Campbell’s descriptions of the films are consistent with real silent film comedy chaos and anarchy in its flouting of and irreverence toward authority – occasionally the descriptions also reminded me of early Max Fleischer animated shorts – while infusing the scenes from the films with an intense creepiness.
Regarding Lovecraft, early in his career Campbell was a devoted follower; his stories from his late teens were published by Arkham House and doggedly structured and written in the style of HPL. While this novel contains a brief, late allusion to Lovecraft’s mythos, it is mostly tied to Lovecraft in its narrative approach of gradually revealing glimpses of the reality behind reality through bits and pieces of information, through hints and innuendo, and in its vision of the extent of what we do not know and cannot easily comprehend, and the power it may exert over us. Over his 50 year career Campbell has gone from acolyte to master, and this novel displays that mastery.
Other fine novels by Ramsey Campbell:
Midnight Sun
Ancient Images
The Doll Who Ate Its Mother
Other impinging realities,
Arthur Machen, “The Novel of the Black Seal”
Arthur Machen, “The Great God Pan”
Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows” among others
H.P. Lovecraft: “The Rats in the Walls” & “The Call of Cthulhu” among others (H.P. Lovecraft: Complete and Unabridged, Barnes & Noble, 2008)
Robert A. Heinlein, “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” (The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein, Tor, 1999)
Fritz Leiber, “You’re All Alone” (expanded into The Sinful Ones)
Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood
Caitlin Kiernan, The Red Tree & The Drowning Girl
Next: House of Windows by John Langan
I’ve hardly lifted my finger from the bellpush when the intercom emits its boxy cough and says “Hello?”
“Hi, Mark.”
“It’s Simon,” Natalie’s seven-year-old calls and adds even more eagerly “Did you get your job?”
– opening paragraphs
“Hi, Mark.”
“It’s Simon,” Natalie’s seven-year-old calls and adds even more eagerly “Did you get your job?”
– opening paragraphs
Simon Lester lost his job as writer for a magazine devoted to film criticism after a piece by his boss, Colin Vernon, prompted law suits that shut the magazine down by freezing its assets. Since then, his name connected to the scandal, Lester has been unable to find work in his field, including the job alluded to in the opening lines above.
Wallowing in a part-time job at a gas station, a stroke of luck brings Lester both work and an advance: A former student at the London University at Royal Holloway College has died, leaving money for the college to begin publishing books, specifically books on film. The editor of this venture, his former professor, Rufus Wall, wants Lester to expand his thesis and prepare it for a larger audience. Lester’s thesis dealt with forgotten film pioneers and stars, and Wall is especially enthusiastic about filling in the sketchy biography of the silent film star, Tubby Thackeray, real name, Thackeray Lane, whose films have all disappeared even as their reputation has become tied to scandal.
During his search Lester comes across disturbing stills and clips from the movies; both as a music hall entertainer and later as a film comedian, Thackeray’s performances are said to have evoked violent reactions. Eventually, Lester tracks down copies of the films and they burrow into his consciousness, scenes and images dominating his thoughts and dreams. For Lester Tubby’s rotundity, his long lean legs and especially his pale white grinning face become a recurring sight, appearing in unlikely surroundings outside of the films even as the impression of distant laughter haunts him.
The Grin of the Dark is not a merging of genres, but a horror novel from the center of the genre by a master of the form. Still, like so many horror stories post-Lovecraft (or, perhaps more accurately, post-Machen), there is the fantasy element of other realms, other realities unrecognized impinging on our own. Lester’s researches into the films of Tubby Thackeray bring him into contact with an insidious, grinning evil that undermines and corrupts one’s sense of reality. Early in the novel Campbell signals the direction of the novel when Wall mentions what Lester hears as the “Tickle bequest,” the money left for the publishing project by Charles Stanley Tickell. From that point on Campbell plays with language and the sounds of words, creating confusion and miscommunication between his characters through multiple meanings and the faulty interpretations the characters apply to maintain and bolster the context of their reality, even as Simon Lester’s reality slowly changes. Supporting this slow alteration, Campbell’s descriptions of the films are consistent with real silent film comedy chaos and anarchy in its flouting of and irreverence toward authority – occasionally the descriptions also reminded me of early Max Fleischer animated shorts – while infusing the scenes from the films with an intense creepiness.
Regarding Lovecraft, early in his career Campbell was a devoted follower; his stories from his late teens were published by Arkham House and doggedly structured and written in the style of HPL. While this novel contains a brief, late allusion to Lovecraft’s mythos, it is mostly tied to Lovecraft in its narrative approach of gradually revealing glimpses of the reality behind reality through bits and pieces of information, through hints and innuendo, and in its vision of the extent of what we do not know and cannot easily comprehend, and the power it may exert over us. Over his 50 year career Campbell has gone from acolyte to master, and this novel displays that mastery.
Other fine novels by Ramsey Campbell:
Midnight Sun
Ancient Images
The Doll Who Ate Its Mother
Other impinging realities,
Arthur Machen, “The Novel of the Black Seal”
Arthur Machen, “The Great God Pan”
Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows” among others
H.P. Lovecraft: “The Rats in the Walls” & “The Call of Cthulhu” among others (H.P. Lovecraft: Complete and Unabridged, Barnes & Noble, 2008)
Robert A. Heinlein, “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” (The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein, Tor, 1999)
Fritz Leiber, “You’re All Alone” (expanded into The Sinful Ones)
Robert Holdstock, Mythago Wood
Caitlin Kiernan, The Red Tree & The Drowning Girl
Next: House of Windows by John Langan
HOUSE OF WINDOWS by John Langan (Night Shade Books: hc -2009, tpb-2010)
Roger and Veronica Croyden endure being haunted by Roger's son, Ted, from a previous marriage. What causes Ted to haunt them, the search for a means to put Ted to rest and to learn how their home, Belvedere House, ties into the haunting, provide the plot over which Langan drapes an emotionally and psychologically complex tale about the expectations and realities of marriage, and the intricacies of the relationship between fathers and sons, and how the ripples in either carry from generation to generation.
I expect appreciation of the novel will vary greatly among readers for two reasons: first, the pacing is like that of a mainstream literary novel, which is to say, it’s deliberate, focusing less on action than on the internal landscapes of its characters and the mystery surrounding what they are involved in; second, the narrator's voice. In the early pages I was prepared to dislike Veronica Croyden because of her intellectual smugness -- Langan captures that perfectly. But as the story continues, she shows courage, ingenuity, resolve and insight; while she makes mistakes, including mistakes that precipitate unfortunate events, they are plausible as the mistakes of a young wife of an older husband, and her decisions as the novel comes to an end, while not necessarily admirable, are arrived at reasonably and forced on her by the actions of others.
That Roger and Veronica are English professors, he an acknowledged Dickens scholar, she engaged with 19th century American literature, gives Langan license to reference Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Hawthorne and Melville, among others. Meanwhile, more subtly he structures his novel along the lines of Peter Straub’s work, references Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness, and offers a Lovecraftian view of greater powers, in particular one passage discussing Moby Dick and a whale watch that offers a startling and effective analogy for the effects striven for by writers like Lovecraft and Arthur Machen. Like Our Lady of Darkness, this novel is a sort of fantasy/horror hybrid, with enough darkness to fulfill the needs of a horror story and enough of meticulously crafted and believable otherness to extend into fantasy.
Other fine haunted houses and ghostly novels:
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Hell House by Richard Matheson
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (filmed, starring Daniel Radcliffe)
Naomi’s Room by Jonathan Aycliffe;
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
(scroll to post #21)
Next (Tuesday): Holiday by M. Rickert & a little about what I’ve read in The Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones
“Everyone asks me what I ‘think’ happened to Roger,” said Veronica Croyden, “and if I don’t supply them with an answer immediately, they’re only too happy to offer their own. Could he have had a heart attack while he was out for one of his walks? As if the police hadn’t thought of that already, and there hadn’t been that enormous search for him in the woods off Founders. And as if, because he was sixty-five, his heart was a ticking time-bomb. If not a heart attack, then it’s a stroke or something similar, an aneurysm. As if Roger didn’t’ run five miles every day; as if he didn’t have the body of a forty-year-old. Trust me, I know.” She raised her hands from the sink, and passed me a plate.
-- (first paragraph)
-- (first paragraph)
Roger and Veronica Croyden endure being haunted by Roger's son, Ted, from a previous marriage. What causes Ted to haunt them, the search for a means to put Ted to rest and to learn how their home, Belvedere House, ties into the haunting, provide the plot over which Langan drapes an emotionally and psychologically complex tale about the expectations and realities of marriage, and the intricacies of the relationship between fathers and sons, and how the ripples in either carry from generation to generation.
I expect appreciation of the novel will vary greatly among readers for two reasons: first, the pacing is like that of a mainstream literary novel, which is to say, it’s deliberate, focusing less on action than on the internal landscapes of its characters and the mystery surrounding what they are involved in; second, the narrator's voice. In the early pages I was prepared to dislike Veronica Croyden because of her intellectual smugness -- Langan captures that perfectly. But as the story continues, she shows courage, ingenuity, resolve and insight; while she makes mistakes, including mistakes that precipitate unfortunate events, they are plausible as the mistakes of a young wife of an older husband, and her decisions as the novel comes to an end, while not necessarily admirable, are arrived at reasonably and forced on her by the actions of others.
That Roger and Veronica are English professors, he an acknowledged Dickens scholar, she engaged with 19th century American literature, gives Langan license to reference Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Hawthorne and Melville, among others. Meanwhile, more subtly he structures his novel along the lines of Peter Straub’s work, references Fritz Leiber's Our Lady of Darkness, and offers a Lovecraftian view of greater powers, in particular one passage discussing Moby Dick and a whale watch that offers a startling and effective analogy for the effects striven for by writers like Lovecraft and Arthur Machen. Like Our Lady of Darkness, this novel is a sort of fantasy/horror hybrid, with enough darkness to fulfill the needs of a horror story and enough of meticulously crafted and believable otherness to extend into fantasy.
Other fine haunted houses and ghostly novels:
Ghost Story by Peter Straub
Hell House by Richard Matheson
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (filmed, starring Daniel Radcliffe)
Naomi’s Room by Jonathan Aycliffe;
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
(scroll to post #21)
Next (Tuesday): Holiday by M. Rickert & a little about what I’ve read in The Book of Horrors edited by Stephen Jones
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Update: Working on the Penzler (Ghost Stories). Though I am enjoying it overall, I don't think it's as strong a collection as the Vampire Archives or the Zombies one, sadly. There are some very good stories in there, whilst others are a tad dull/predictable. Still more hits than misses, though a little more uneven.
Loerwyn
Staff
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Dracula's in England! I'm... Well, past the bit where Van Helsing appears, and I just got past the point where the doctor is attacked by the madman he's studying.
Definitely a better read at this point, though a little hard to get to grips with still.
Definitely a better read at this point, though a little hard to get to grips with still.
raggedyman
Registered User
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I've been reading stories from three excellent collections. They Return At Evening by H. R. Wakefield , The Alabaster Hand by A. L. N. Munby (by the way these stories were written in a WW2 POW camp!) and The Horror Of Abbot's Grange by Frederick Cowles (my favorite !).
Hi, all.
After yesterday's rain delay, I plan on posting a couple more items later today.
Mark: A look at the contents of Penzler had me scratching my head a bit. He seemed to concentrate a lot on the old pulp magazines, less on the known ghost story writers, though he did include works by a few of the better known.
Loerwyn: Glad to hear it's gotten easier.
Raggedyman: I think I have the Munby. Cowles isn't all that easy to find, except a story here and there in ghost story collections. Wakefield ... a couple of his stories are really good, but I just can't warm to his work as a whole. I'm interested to hear what you think as you read farther.
Randy M.
After yesterday's rain delay, I plan on posting a couple more items later today.
Mark: A look at the contents of Penzler had me scratching my head a bit. He seemed to concentrate a lot on the old pulp magazines, less on the known ghost story writers, though he did include works by a few of the better known.
Loerwyn: Glad to hear it's gotten easier.
Raggedyman: I think I have the Munby. Cowles isn't all that easy to find, except a story here and there in ghost story collections. Wakefield ... a couple of his stories are really good, but I just can't warm to his work as a whole. I'm interested to hear what you think as you read farther.
Randy M.
A BOOK OF HORRORS ed. Stephen Jones (St. Martin’s Griffin; 2012)
“What the hell happened to the horror genre?” Stephen Jones asks first thing in his introduction to A Book of Horrors, wondering what happened to the iconic figures of the ghost, mummy, vampire, wolfman and man-made monster who once upon a time were objects of fear but now are likely to be seen sipping tea or pina colada’s while chasing a social agenda or, maybe, crooks. But this is mostly a rhetorical flourish; while Jones is dismissive of “horror-lite” – which he defines as paranormal romance and even steampunk – he doesn’t declare war. No, his point is to say there is still an audience for the horror story, an audience not being served by the paranormal romance, and that is the audience he intends to entertain with this anthology.
I still have six stories to read, but the first eight pretty much fulfill Jones’ stated intention to bring the scare back to horror. No mummies or werewolves so far, but there are some ghosts and at least one thing that I’d call a vampire, and they are by and large nasty critters.
“The Little Green God of Agony” by Stephen King opens the anthology and is as strong as any short story I’ve read by him, introducing a sort of faith healer who may or may not be preying on a wealthy man’s agony.
One of my favorites is Brian Hodge’s “Roots and All,” which introduces a higher justice carried out by something outside our usual avenues of justice. Hodge does a nice job of extrapolating a horror story from the current state of parts of our rural areas. This is a strong example of noir-ish horror.
Dennis Etchison’s “Tell Me I’ll See You Again,” concerns a young boy’s grief. I found it a little opaque, but thought-provoking; it should repay re-reading.
In Ramsey Campbell’s “Getting it Wrong” a radio quiz show’s penalties for wrong answers are extreme and it’s criteria for contestants leave no room for one to demur.
In “John Ajvide Lindqvist’s “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” a recent widower and his son come across the music of the title character, music which affects them strangely.
The story I enjoyed least is Peter Crowther’s “Ghosts with Teeth.” Crowther establishes place and character well enough, but I felt like I was walking a path worn deep by Stephen King, and the story takes a fairly conventional tack so I could see the ending coming. It is suitably nasty, fitting Jones’ stated intentions, but I found it a bit of a slog. Perhaps oddly, and in spite of a rather gruesome ending, I thought this could make an effective movie.
Jones doesn’t neglect the weird story: Caitlin Kiernan’s “Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint” is a tight, direct story that still manages to establish a mood and convey a sense of something nasty imminent; the ending surprised me a little and, in retrospect, fits neatly with what Kiernan sets up early on. Also, weird, and my favorite story so far is Angela Slatter’s “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter.” Crisply and clearly Slatter establishes her setting, an alternate past, in which Hepsibah is a coffin-maker where coffin-makers are important for keeping the dead in their grave. I hope to read more by Slatter.
And speaking of great short stories …
HOLIDAY by M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon Press, 2010. Nominated for World Fantasy Award for a collection.)
While I enjoyed A Book of Horrors, if the choice was to purchase and read that anthology or this collection, I’d strongly urge you to go with Holiday.
As with Caitlin Kiernan’s To Charles Fort, With Love, I’m not sure I can do this collection justice. Holiday is characterized by a fine, supple, flowing prose in the service of heart-breaking and wonderful stories. The stories are arranged by and take place on holidays including New Years, Christmas and, of course, Halloween. While one story is arguably s. f. the rest deal with personal and frequently subjective accounts of ghosts and faerie, and those times when another world peeps into ours or we peep into another world, when the supernatural mixes with our wants, needs and desires. Like Glen Hirshberg, Rickert is an artist of the melancholy and these stories all deal with those melancholy shadings and shadows around other emotions; these stories also serve as strong examples of what we mean when we say, "dark fantasy."
None of the stories in this collection are weak, but I do have favorites:
“Holiday”
A young man tries to cope with his family’s past while dealing with an addict brother who just doesn’t understand. Or just might understand too well. A ghost story examining grief and fear, hopes for redemption and, maybe, self-delusion. This is a strong first story, and one of the most affecting in the collection.
“Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account”
The world has changed and this young woman feels betrayed that her mother left her. As you read her account of her mother’s betrayal and the world in which she has been left, you begin to realize the situation isn’t quite what you thought and her mother may not be all she has lost.
“Was She Wicked? Was She Good?”
Their little girl is beautiful, happy, always singing and smiling, and her ability to see what others cannot and her consequent actions terrifies them. How do parents protect their child? How can you teach such a young child about the consequences of actions?
“War is Beautiful”
Rickert masterfully plays with perspective. Saying more might be to say too much.
“The Christmas Witch”
The hope to be found in this collection is spare and bleak, and so it seems initially with this story, but then, maybe hope isn’t always grey.
This is only the second book by Rickert. The first, Map of Dreams, was nominated for an International Horror Guild best collection award (losing to Glen Hirshberg’s American Morons) and won the World Fantasy Award for a collection in 2006. With this collection, Rickert has become a writer I’ll buy on sight.
An aside:
I don't normally comment on packaging, but the cover and illustrations by Thomas Canty for this book are extraordinary, appropriately macabre or nostalgic for the given story, and elegant throughout. Canty has been a favorite of mine since the first time I saw his covers for the Datlow/Windling year's best fantasy and horror anthologies, and I cannot think of a better example than this book to … er … illustrate why.
Other melancholy short dark fantasy/horror:
Glen Hirshberg: The Two Sams & American Morons
Sarah Monette: The Bone Key
Holly Phillips: In the Palace of Repose
“What the hell happened to the horror genre?” Stephen Jones asks first thing in his introduction to A Book of Horrors, wondering what happened to the iconic figures of the ghost, mummy, vampire, wolfman and man-made monster who once upon a time were objects of fear but now are likely to be seen sipping tea or pina colada’s while chasing a social agenda or, maybe, crooks. But this is mostly a rhetorical flourish; while Jones is dismissive of “horror-lite” – which he defines as paranormal romance and even steampunk – he doesn’t declare war. No, his point is to say there is still an audience for the horror story, an audience not being served by the paranormal romance, and that is the audience he intends to entertain with this anthology.
I still have six stories to read, but the first eight pretty much fulfill Jones’ stated intention to bring the scare back to horror. No mummies or werewolves so far, but there are some ghosts and at least one thing that I’d call a vampire, and they are by and large nasty critters.
“The Little Green God of Agony” by Stephen King opens the anthology and is as strong as any short story I’ve read by him, introducing a sort of faith healer who may or may not be preying on a wealthy man’s agony.
One of my favorites is Brian Hodge’s “Roots and All,” which introduces a higher justice carried out by something outside our usual avenues of justice. Hodge does a nice job of extrapolating a horror story from the current state of parts of our rural areas. This is a strong example of noir-ish horror.
Dennis Etchison’s “Tell Me I’ll See You Again,” concerns a young boy’s grief. I found it a little opaque, but thought-provoking; it should repay re-reading.
In Ramsey Campbell’s “Getting it Wrong” a radio quiz show’s penalties for wrong answers are extreme and it’s criteria for contestants leave no room for one to demur.
In “John Ajvide Lindqvist’s “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” a recent widower and his son come across the music of the title character, music which affects them strangely.
The story I enjoyed least is Peter Crowther’s “Ghosts with Teeth.” Crowther establishes place and character well enough, but I felt like I was walking a path worn deep by Stephen King, and the story takes a fairly conventional tack so I could see the ending coming. It is suitably nasty, fitting Jones’ stated intentions, but I found it a bit of a slog. Perhaps oddly, and in spite of a rather gruesome ending, I thought this could make an effective movie.
Jones doesn’t neglect the weird story: Caitlin Kiernan’s “Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint” is a tight, direct story that still manages to establish a mood and convey a sense of something nasty imminent; the ending surprised me a little and, in retrospect, fits neatly with what Kiernan sets up early on. Also, weird, and my favorite story so far is Angela Slatter’s “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter.” Crisply and clearly Slatter establishes her setting, an alternate past, in which Hepsibah is a coffin-maker where coffin-makers are important for keeping the dead in their grave. I hope to read more by Slatter.
And speaking of great short stories …
HOLIDAY by M. Rickert (Golden Gryphon Press, 2010. Nominated for World Fantasy Award for a collection.)
While I enjoyed A Book of Horrors, if the choice was to purchase and read that anthology or this collection, I’d strongly urge you to go with Holiday.
As with Caitlin Kiernan’s To Charles Fort, With Love, I’m not sure I can do this collection justice. Holiday is characterized by a fine, supple, flowing prose in the service of heart-breaking and wonderful stories. The stories are arranged by and take place on holidays including New Years, Christmas and, of course, Halloween. While one story is arguably s. f. the rest deal with personal and frequently subjective accounts of ghosts and faerie, and those times when another world peeps into ours or we peep into another world, when the supernatural mixes with our wants, needs and desires. Like Glen Hirshberg, Rickert is an artist of the melancholy and these stories all deal with those melancholy shadings and shadows around other emotions; these stories also serve as strong examples of what we mean when we say, "dark fantasy."
None of the stories in this collection are weak, but I do have favorites:
“Holiday”
A young man tries to cope with his family’s past while dealing with an addict brother who just doesn’t understand. Or just might understand too well. A ghost story examining grief and fear, hopes for redemption and, maybe, self-delusion. This is a strong first story, and one of the most affecting in the collection.
“Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account”
The world has changed and this young woman feels betrayed that her mother left her. As you read her account of her mother’s betrayal and the world in which she has been left, you begin to realize the situation isn’t quite what you thought and her mother may not be all she has lost.
“Was She Wicked? Was She Good?”
Their little girl is beautiful, happy, always singing and smiling, and her ability to see what others cannot and her consequent actions terrifies them. How do parents protect their child? How can you teach such a young child about the consequences of actions?
“War is Beautiful”
Rickert masterfully plays with perspective. Saying more might be to say too much.
“The Christmas Witch”
The hope to be found in this collection is spare and bleak, and so it seems initially with this story, but then, maybe hope isn’t always grey.
This is only the second book by Rickert. The first, Map of Dreams, was nominated for an International Horror Guild best collection award (losing to Glen Hirshberg’s American Morons) and won the World Fantasy Award for a collection in 2006. With this collection, Rickert has become a writer I’ll buy on sight.
An aside:
I don't normally comment on packaging, but the cover and illustrations by Thomas Canty for this book are extraordinary, appropriately macabre or nostalgic for the given story, and elegant throughout. Canty has been a favorite of mine since the first time I saw his covers for the Datlow/Windling year's best fantasy and horror anthologies, and I cannot think of a better example than this book to … er … illustrate why.
Other melancholy short dark fantasy/horror:
Glen Hirshberg: The Two Sams & American Morons
Sarah Monette: The Bone Key
Holly Phillips: In the Palace of Repose
algernoninc
Now I'm an axolotl
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- Messages
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Randy, congratulations! You did it again, added too many titles to my reading list. I wish you a very scary night, serves you right, for pushing all these horrors on us.
Thanks, Algernoninc. Here's one last suggestion, circling back to where we started ...
“THE BLACK FERRIS" by Ray Bradbury ( Alfred A. Knopf, 1981; first published in Weird Tales in 1948)
The carnival had come to town like an October wind, like a dark bat flying over the cold lake, bones rattling in the night, mourning, sighing, whispering up the tents in the dark rain. It stayed on for a month by the gray, restless lake of October, in the black weather and increasing storms and leaded skies.”
-- first paragraph
-- first paragraph
A cold, rainy day three weeks into the carnival’s visit, and Hank drags Peter to sit outside the carnival in a tree and watch as Mr. Cooger, about 35-years-old, hops aboard the Ferris wheel and in twenty-five backward turns hops off a 10-year-old. But why? And what can Hank and Peter do about it?
This story is part of the genesis of Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, Hank and Peter the first draft of Will and Jim from that novel. The story feels very 1940s and it’s mainly about the gimmick, the boys real enough for the purpose of the story but no more developed than needed. A little more than ten years later Bradbury would develop the gimmick, make it serve a greater purpose as he contrasted Mr. Cooger with Will’s father, and Will and Jim with the young Cooger, bringing the entire carnival to life.
Other Halloween Bradbury (scroll to post #63)
Other stories for Halloween night (scroll to post #57)
Amazing to think October is nearly finished all ready. I hope you learned of a couple of titles that will quench your search for disquiet – I learned or was reminded of a couple I hope to track down.
Let me leave you with one last thought: Besides the ghosts and ghouls, the strutting monsters and shambling political vote-beggars, Halloween is the signal for another fear, a realization of future anxiety that affects a large portion of the population:
Only 54 more shopping days until Christmas!
Happy Halloween, all!
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And there with a Bradbury and a worryingly scary reminder, we have our Halloween for 2012 come to a close!
Hope you all found more reading: I've added some to my list as well (possibly to be added to in 53 days time!)
My thanks (again) to Randy for this: another set of quality suggestions.
Mark
Hope you all found more reading: I've added some to my list as well (possibly to be added to in 53 days time!)
My thanks (again) to Randy for this: another set of quality suggestions.
Mark
Modern Day Myth
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I would suggest one of mt books for Horror fans, The Refuge Of Night. Amazon.com has second hand copies, CVK Publishing still has new copies. The book is short with only 2 short stories about vampires, but for $4.95 these days, the price is reasonable. The second story, The Real Monster is a free read on the CVK Publishing site right here http://www.cvkproductions.com/PUBHomePage.html right by the new icon. What inspired this story was my research into demonology and witchcraft. The witch hunters of centuries ago were noble men and judges who abused their power with trumped up charges against a lot of women. So, why not give a woman the power to get justice?
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