The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and other stories, by Laird Barron

9781597804677
Night Shade Books, 2013
276 pp

hardcover

John Langan notes on the back cover of this book that he "can't sum up Laird Barron in a single, pithy sentence," and neither can I. If you've read his work, you already know that he is one of the best horror/weird fiction writers out there; if you haven't, then you seriously don't know what you're missing.  I don't actually remember how I got started reading his stuff, but now I'm hooked. He's an author I prefer to read late at night, when all is quiet, and if I'm really lucky,  when there's a raging thunderstorm outside. I've also come to realize that when horror/weird fiction/the supernatural is done right, it is just as good as any work of "literary" fiction out there -- and Laird Barron definitely does it right. If you're considering this author's work, go find his story "Strappado." I guarantee you'll come back for more.

and now, without further ado...the stories.

• “Blackwood’s Baby” -- I've already read this story in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four (Ellen Datlow, ed.)earlier this year, and it was just as creepy this time around. Set in Washington state, the story begins as hunter Luke Honey has been invited to join a hunting party at the Black Ram Lodge in the forest of Ransom Hollow. As owner Liam Welloc explains, there are "plenty of deer and boar on this preserve," but the real prize is the "great stag known as Blackwood's Baby."  It is not only "the equal of any beast" that any of those present have ever hunted, but also the subject of  darkest legend in these parts.  Deliciously creepy -- 

•  “The Redfield Girls” --  For the past ten years, a group of friends, all teachers from the same school,  have all come together for a road trip "along the hinterlands of the Pacific Northwest."  It's a girls' weekend away, where they spend time playing cribbage, drinking wine, reading -- anything to unwind before school starts up again.  This year the women are off to a cabin at Lake Crescent, located on the Olympic Peninsula,  complete with legendary past: it is rumored to be "full of demons"  who would drag trespassers down to the bottom.    Just before the trip is set to get underway, one of the women (Bernice)  receives a surprise visit from her niece, who ends up being number eleven on the trip. Her arrival coincides with a number of strange dreams Bernice has been having, but Bernice passes off the timing as "bizarre" and "too eerie for coincidence."  Off they go, and during a stormy night, the lake's freaky history becomes a topic of conversation to pass the time.  Later on, after a hike, the women decide to test the waters, so to speak -- and the reader is left to wonder if  the supernatural is at work here of if it's just, as Lemony Snicket would say, a series of unfortunate incidents.   Excellent story -- worth it just for the atmosphere alone! 

•  “Hand of Glory” -- The narrator of this story, Johnny Cope,  tells his tale in hardboiled mode, which is not strange since he has become a hitman for a local tough-guy gangster. Things start going south when a couple of men try to kill him, and he finds a name, Conrad Paxton,  written on the back of a card in a wallet belonging to one of the gunmen.  His boss pays for him to take a "vacation," and sends a couple of guys to take care of him.  As he's about to set on the trail of who was responsible for sending the two killers, he gets a call from someone purporting to be an old friend of his father's, who gives him the name of the man who killed his father.   Never one to sit idly, he makes his way toward his father's killer, and unable to control his destructive urges, steps into something way over his head.   The hardboiled tone in this story blends perfectly with eerie black magic, some freakishly strange sisters,  and a maker of bizarre films to create a flawless, frightening tale.
  
• "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven” takes place in Poger Rock, pop. 190, in yet another cabin in the woods.  The remoteness of the location is by choice, since a woman, Lorna,  who has been a constant victim of abuse by her husband,  takes up shelter there.  Her lover, Miranda, was able to get the cabin, and it is the perfect spot to hide, waiting for Lorna's "soon to be ex" to be put in jail.  The combination of local lore about the cabin and its original owner, a chance discovery, and Lorna's growing paranoia all bleed together to ratchet up the uneasiness in this tale, as the women soon discover that perhaps those old legends may have some merit. 
• “The Siphon” --  The NSA sets the proverbial "honey trap" for a man named Lancaster,  a normally coolly-detached sociopath, and forces him into service spying for them.  He has another job, where it seems a few of his colleagues also provide "eyes everywhere the US needed them."  After six months of not being needed at the NSA, he gets a call to provide some intelligence about a certain Dr. Christou, who is hosting a foreign national who just happens to have business with Lancaster's company. It is a job Lancaster feels is "menial" and "mindless,"  but things start getting out of hand when the good doctor becomes the focus of a strange couple who are part of a gathering the company has put together.
• “The Jaws of Saturn” -- The Broadsword Hotel, which I first came across in Barron's collection Occultation, is the venue once again for yet another hitman story, one with a surreal, horrific twist.  The magician from "Hand of Glory" reappears, this time years later under his real name, as a hypnotist who is helping the hitman's girlfriend Carol,  who is trying to quit smoking. She's gone down to half a pack, but suffers from terrible dreams.  Franco, the hitman, doesn't understand the strange changes taking place in Carol, so decides to pay the hypnotist a visit, to have a little chat with him. He is refused an audience, so has to force his way in, and in return, is made to watch the hypnotist's session with Carol. It is, as Franco will later say, an "apocalyptic visit."
•  “Vastation” is quite different than Barron's usual fare, but takes as its subject the "only human being on the planet", who made himself and then broke the mold, with the other "carbon-based sapient life forms" existing as merely props, "grist for the mill." This entire story is a monologue, featuring someone who's evolved into a kind of superbeing who has mastered a third of the layers of space and time, with the power to make and remake his own existence, only to discover that he's bored with himself and his life. As he notes, "the Universe stretches to a smear and cycles like a slinky reversing through its own spine. No matter what I do, stuff keeps happening in an uninterruptible stream."  The title "Vastation"  is appropriate not just in terms of this story, but in terms of the number of ideas contained within these few pages, with the futility of it all as a centerpiece.
• “The Men From Porlock”-- Back in the past once again (1923), back deep in the woods of Washington State, an ex-Marine named Miller now works at the Slango Logging Camp. The superintendent's foreman tags Miller and other men to go into the woods and snag a couple of good-sized bucks for the upcoming visit of a photographer.  Sitting around the fire the loggers start telling stories "bout these parts," one of them punctuating his tales with a strange map  taken out of one of his grandpappy's books. The map is of Mystery Mountain and  the stories tell of ghosts, evil spirits and demons living in holes in the ground and in trees and rocks.  All is well until "at the very edge of perception," Miller begins to hear some very strange music...
  
• Last, but definitely not least comes “More Dark” --  within which is the source of the novel's title, where  an author with a suicide bent attends an event where the main attraction is a reclusive horror writer who, on stage, shows up like death dressed in red and lets a puppet do his speaking for him. There are a wide variety of horror writers mentioned in this little meta piece, but I'm not sure if this one is written for horror fans or for other writers of the genre. Either way, it's quite good and it's funny.  

 As a whole, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All managed to bring on a stomach-knotting sense of unease in nearly every story. It is a nice mix of weird, Lovecraft-style cosmic horror and more supernatural type fright, both of which work blended well in my mind and kept me at a high tension level throughout the book. There is a lot going thematically and psychologically here, and there is also a lot of interweaving of past stories into this collection as well -- for example, the map of Mystery Mountain in  "The Men From Porlock" came into play in Barron's "Mysterium Tremendum," the Broadsword Hotel has also made previous appearances, and The Black Ram Lodge has appeared more than once I love how he does this -- it's like being back on familiar ground, yet different.  Once again, Laird Barron has woven his magic, making me a very happy reader. 

5 is my lucky number, but not so much this time. The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Five, Ellen Datlow (ed.)

9781597804745
Night Shade Books, 2013
406 pp

softcover

"We all of us have a chapter like that. A black chapter. Sometimes you write it yourself. Sometimes some bastard writes it for you."

-- Conrad Williams, The Pike 

I'll just be blunt here. There were very few stories in this collection that stopped time for me, drew me in so that nothing else existed outside of the book, or god forbid, actually scared me or gave me any sense of the willies whatsoever -- you know, the things that tell me that I've just read an insanely good book of horror tales.  I know that everyone has different ideas about what good horror should be, and I've seen that  a couple of  goodreads readers have given this book 5-star reviews.  But taking this collection as a whole, I  think  it's a lot more "weird" than frightening. When I read horror, I want chills creeping up along my spine; I want to feel the "shivering dread" noted on the back cover blurb. Sorry, but I just didn't get a lot of that here.  Of course, as China Miéville notes in his "afterweird" of The Weird (VanderMeer and VanderMeer eds),

"We don't fray the world quite the same..."

so this is a book in which you should judge the horror factor for yourself.

Now, let's explore, shall we? After all, I did find a few that were nice and squirmworthy (*).


1. "Nikishi,"  by Lucy Taylor:  A good, unsettling choice for a first story, in which a shipwrecked thief finds refuge, a young girl, and nasty hyenas  in a deserted African village, but it slid into predictability after a while. 
 

2. “Little America” by Dan Chaon:  Some time in the near and dystopic future, a man is a traveling to Salt Lake City with a young boy who he ties up when they stay at motels.  Turns out he's not a kidnapper, but a man on a special mission.  I'd label this one more "weird" than I would "horror". 

3. “A Natural History of Autumn” by Jeffrey Ford:  This one I loved -- extremely squirmworthy.  Set in Japan, a bar hostess meets a guy who promises her a "field trip" to a private onsen (hot springs) "out in the woods on a mountainside, hidden and very old-fashioned, no frills."  He keeps his promise, and gets more than he'd ever bargained for.    One of my favorites in the entire book. *

4. “Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson -- I don't get why this is considered horror at all, except for the opening line by John Wyndham: "As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror."  If you're interested in knowing how many ways a "mantis woman" can kill her husband, then you'll like it. I didn't.

5. “Tender as Teeth” by Stephanie Crawford and Duane Swierczynski:  A woman who became infected with a zombie virus is now cured, but some people are not so forgiving of what the "Zombie chick" did before.  I'm not a zombie person, but maybe others will like this story. 

6. “The Callers” by Ramsey Campbell:  Here, the tension and uneasiness slowly builds, as good horror should.  A young boy staying with his grandparents decides to go to a movie, but can't get in. Neither can the other two teens standing in line, and they take it very personally.  The boy runs to his grandmother's bingo game, and well, let's just say that if you're a regular bingo player, you may never want to play again after reading this story.  Another good one.  *

7. “Two poems for Hill House” by Kevin McCann:  Hmmm. The second of the two is better. That's all I will say.

8 “Mariner’s Round” by Terry Dowling: There's an old saying about how revenge is a dish best served cold.  That's definitely the case here, where three boys get into a scuffle that leaves a scar on one of them who never forgets. I liked this one until the ending, which was kind of silly, killing the edginess.

9. “Nanny Grey” by Gemma Files:  If you have sex with a stranger, don't rifle through the stuff in her house afterwards. Especially if she has a demonic governess watching over her. This one was just bizarre, but not in a good way.

10. “The Magician’s Apprentice” by Tamsyn Muir: This one could have been good -- a young girl (13) starts her very difficult magician's training under a master, who insists that she also continue her school studies as well. Let's just say they both end up with perverse appetites.  It wasn't so bad, except for the whole pedophilia thing á la Lolita going on here. Ick.

11. “Kill All Monsters” by Gary McMahon: I probably wouldn't have called this one "horror" either -- it's more of a story about a guy who sees monsters in everyone everywhere.  Well written, definitely weird due to the man's psychosis, but not creepy, scary horror.  

12. “The House on Ashley Avenue” by Ian Rogers: Okay, I liked this one -- I am a total sucker for a good haunted house story.  Here,  a couple buy a house they shouldn't have bought, and die the next day. When two psychic investigators come in, they find out why.*

13. “Dead Song” by Jay Wilburn:  More zombies. I hate zombies, although I have to admit that I actually liked this tale, because of the good writing and slow unraveling of the story within the story. 

14. “Sleeping, I Was Beauty” by Sandi Leibowitz: Another poem. 

15. “Bajazzle” by Margo Lanagan:  The main character in this one is going through some sort of midlife crisis -- his wife has decided to become fit and trim, and he liked her old body better.  Not only that, but she's decided that she's not buying into his problems any more.  At a party he runs into an attractive woman -- and the rest is just plain weird. Pages filled with nothing but strange sex -- no.  Another I think more weird than frightening.

16. “The Pike” by Conrad Williams  -- Here's another one that didn't really inspire the creepies, but it's a very well-written story about how one's past can leave scars, mental and physical.  

17. “The Crying Child” by Bruce McAllister:  O mio dio! This story sucked me in and held me until the end. There's something appealing to me about horror stories where kids get caught up in situations well beyond their control or understanding, and this was a good one. Set in Italy during the cold war years, a village filled with people who paint hammers and sickles on their doors is well avoided by the locals because they think they're communists.  A group of boys, however, decide to take a closer look at the doors when they hear the ongoing cries of a single baby -- and one of them returns in the dead of night. *

18. “This Circus the World” by Amber Sparks: mercifully short, and that's all I'm going to say. No horror to see here, move along.

19. “Some Pictures in An Album” by Gary McMahon: Another story just filled with creeping dread that really did hold me until the finish, and then afterwards.  An album of old photos is the centerpiece in this tale where a man looks back through strange pictures of his childhood after the death of his father.*

20. “Wild Acre” by Nathan Ballingrud.  I liked this one too, although it's more of a picture of a man's complete deterioration in the aftermath of  a terrible event renders him powerless and unable to help his friends.  This one is much more psychological, but very well done.  

21. “Final Exam” by Megan Arkenberg:  Yawn. Sorry to be so blunt, but well, there it is.

22. “None So Blind” by Stephen Bacon -- Another very nicely-written tale, again not so much horror oriented as psychological.  Two people meet in a coffee shop after the man has been watching the blind woman for a while to get to know her habits, and strike up a conversation about how she came to be in her current predicament. The man already knows, but he asks anyway.  Absolutely stunning tale. 

23. “The Ballad of Boomtown” by Priya Sharma: Bad spirits abound in this one but it's kind of all over the map and not one of my favorite stories. 

24. “Pig Thing” by Adam Nevill: Another deliciously creepy story, but then again Adam Nevill is one of my favorite horror writers ever. A family transplanted to New Zealand from England and living in the middle of an  preserve in the middle of nowhere have nowhere to turn when strange things start happening at their home.  The horror of this one crept up ever so slowly and hung there until the end.*

25. “The Word-Made Flesh” by Richard Gavin :  Loss and its ensuing grief make people do the strangest things, but probably not as strange as what happens to the narrator's good friend in this story after he loses his wife and child.  A tarot card out of nowhere starts his nightmare, which leads him to an old, abandoned silo where he used to play as a child. *

26. “Into the Penny Arcade” by Claire Massey:  A girl trying to escape a fight is offered safety by a truck driver, who takes her into the trailer where he has some arcade machines from yesteryear that he insists she try out.  Awesome story, it reminded very much of Ray Bradbury's writing.*

27. “Magdala Amygdala” by Lucy Snyder.  Yes, this story got rave reviews, but it's not my cuppa. Recommended for people who like the combination of  viruses, sex and brain devouring, with a mention of the old gods in "their thrones in the dark spaces between the stars"  thrown in at the end. Hmm.

28. “Frontier Death Song” by Laird Barron.  In my top tier of weird fiction/horror writers, Laird Barron offers a story here based on the myth of the Wild Hunt.  As the main character is racing in the Iditarod, he comes into the path of the Hunt and disturbs the Huntsman, even tries to kill it.  Not a good idea.  He then becomes the prey, and races toward what he hopes is safety.  This story is good and disturbing, but the end is sort of silly which takes away its edge. 

In summary: out of 28 stories, there are eight  total that I'd consider creepy horror:

"A Natural History of Autumn," by Jeffrey Ford

"The Callers," by Ramsey Campbell

"The House on Ashley Avenue," by Ian Rogers

"The Crying Child," by Bruce McAllister 

“Some Pictures in An Album” by Gary McMahon

" Pig Thing” by Adam Nevill

"The Word Made Flesh," by Richard Gavin

" Into the Penny Arcade," by Claire Massey

of the 19 that are left,  a few deserve honorable mention: they weren't terribly scary, but they were very well written. They were also incredibly weird (on the good side):

" Kill All Monsters” by Gary McMahon

"Dead Song," by Jay Wilburn

"The Pike," by Conrad Williams

"Wild Acre," by Nathan Ballingrud

"None So Blind," by Stephen Bacon

and finally, even though the endings fizzled, kudos for weirdness to

Terry Dowling, for "Mariners' Round"

and 

Laird Barron for "Frontier Death Song"

I will say that for the most part, I had a lot of fun with this collection, and that the very nature of anthologies is taking the good along with the not so hot.  I read them to discover new authors, and in that sense, this book is a success.  This installment # 5 of Datlow's Best Horror of the Year is one you have to judge for yourself in terms of what you consider horror or not. 

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, Jeff VanderMeer, Ann VanderMeer, eds.

9780765333605
Tor, 2012
1152 pp

hard cover
 

"These are strange aeons. These texts, dead and/or not burrow, and we cannot predict everything they will infect or eat their path through. But certainly your brain, and they will eat the books you read from today on, too. That is how the Weird recruits.

This is a worm farm. These stories are worms." 

 --- China Miéville, "Afterweird"

Massive shrieks of delight!! As far as a humongous collection of weird tales, it just don't get better than this, folks. Seriously.  Even considering the 1152 double-columned pages, its heft (not at all comfortable for reading in bed) and the couple of months it took me to get through this weighty tome, it was all worth it.  While every anthology has a few stories that a reader's not going to like, overall this one is a 5/5 star collection, worth every moment it took to read and certainly worth every penny I spent on it. That was last year, when you could actually still buy one new -- now if you want the hardcover edition, it's in the hands of secondhand sellers. Luckily there are now both paperback editions and one for the e-reader.  It's monumental, it's epic and well, it's the ultimate weird collection!!

My copy ... so you can get an idea of its sheer heft

China Miéville writes in the book's "afterweird" that

"In this book is a Weird Canon. It is not exactly yours -- how could it be? We don't fray the world quite the same, and different things watch each of us...Weird travels with us, each reader a Typhoid Mary in every library."

He's so right. My cup of tea in terms of the weird may not be someone else's, but in this book, there's a wide enough of a variety that will show you, when all is said and done, just which waters of the weird you'd like to continue to navigate.  For me, there are only a handful that weren't really up my alley -- mainly (but not limited to) the ones with more of a "weird science" edge.   Below is the table of contents, with my absolute favorites double asterisked (**); the other stories I liked but a little less are asterisked (*).  There are a number of stories that any long-term reader of weird fiction (or supernatural fiction in general) will have probably already read; considering the stories all date from the turn of the 20th century onward, that shouldn't be surprising. While not all may be the bone-chilling kind of weird, the stories are deliciously creepy and reading them will maybe make you a little more conscious of the late-night noises in your house or give you the urge to go to the front door to check the locks now and then. I couldn't help getting the feeling that someone or something was watching me...


So now, without further ado, here is the table of contents in its entirety --

Alfred Kubin, “The Other Side”  *  --  an incredibly surreal tale set in the dream city of Pearl -- sadly, this was an excerpt from the story so we only get a part of  this story about a town where everyone seems to be suffering from some kind of strange sleeping sickness. While it's highly atmospheric, some of the ending oomph gets lost in the process, but the surreality of it all makes for a good read. 
F. Marion Crawford, “The Screaming Skull” (previously read) * -- A man lives to regret the day he tells a friend about a most heinous murder.  This one is pure atmosphere and very well done.  
Algernon Blackwood, “The Willows” (previously read)* -- two men decide to take a canoe down the Danube and stop at an island filled with willows.  They're warned off by another river farer, but fail to take heed, much to their detriment. I like this one a LOT!
Saki, “Sredni Vashtar” * -- a very creepy story about a boy who starts worshiping his ferret -- and while it may sound rather silly, it gets freaky very quickly. 
 M.R. James, “Casting the Runes” ** -- a personal favorite, but then again, I pretty much love anything written by M.R. James.  An alchemist named Karswell has had his paper turned down by a society of fellows; he spends a great deal of effort trying to figure out who exactly vetoed his presentation.  That would be Mr. Dunning, who thinks Karswell has a screw or two loose.  After some very bizarre things start happening to Dunning, he discovers that some time back, a guy who gave Karswell's book a bad review had met an untimely death. Now it's Dunning's turn -- and he needs to figure out how to protect himself.
Lord Dunsany, “How Nuth Would Have Practiced his Art Upon the Gnoles”  * In which we discover that even seasoned jewel thieves are careful when dealing with the Gnoles. 
 Gustav Meyrink, “The Man in the Bottle”** -- one of the creepiest revenge tales I've ever read, a masquerade is the setting for a strange entertainment, in which a man is placed into a giant bottle.  Weird is not a deep enough describer of this story.  I loved it.

Georg Heym, “The Dissection” * -- super bizarre story about a man's thoughts while he's being dissected. 

Hanns Heinz Ewers, “The Spider”** -- Three men stay at a room in a boarding house, and each one ends up hanging himself.  The narrator of the story decides it's time once and for all to figure out why. 
 Rabindranath Tagore, “The Hungry Stones” * -- A deserted palace, once magnificent but now a place where thieves won't even go after dark  becomes the home of a tax collector, and soon he begins to understand why everyone avoids the place.  A wonderful story, this one's all about language and atmosphere.

Luigi Ugolini, “The Vegetable Man” * -- A botanist in the Amazon discovers a new species of plant, picks it, and takes some leaves & flowers from it.  The natives tell him to stay away from it, but it's too late...  
 A. Merritt, “The People of the Pit”** --This story starts with a couple of adventurers on their way to seeking gold in some legendary mountains up toward the Yukon.  While they're camped, they watch a brilliant light show in the direction of where they're headed, and a man comes crawling into their camp, literally on his last legs. The story he tells is the stuff of nightmares.  This is my first Merritt story -- definitely not my last. 

 Ryunosuke Akutagawa, "The Hell Screen" ** -- In which a Japanese lord commissions an artist with a beautiful daughter to paint a scene from hell on a screen -- and the artist finds the ultimate inspiration for his work.  This story defines the word freaky!


  Francis Stevens, “Unseen—Unfeared”** -- A man with an impending sense of evil happens upon an exhibit of strange photography and discovers "horror too great for bearing." Amazing. 

 Franz Kafka, “In the Penal Colony”  (previously read) ** -- An officer's strange devotion to an even stranger apparatus, now being put out of use,  is at the heart of this story in a penal colony where "Guilt is always beyond a doubt." I love this story, absolutely love it. It's beyond weird. 
 Stefan Grabinski, “The White Wyrak” * -- Chimney sweepers start disappearing in this tale, and will make you think twice about how to handle leftover soot in your fireplace.  More on the monster side, but still good in the telling.
 H.F. Arnold, “The Night Wire”  (previously read) ** -- The horror builds slowly in this little gem about an operator in a newsroom receiving strange news about a creeping mist in a town his companion's never heard of.  Perhaps the technology is outmoded, but it doesn't dampen the creep factor. 

H.P. Lovecraft, “The Dunwich Horror” (previously read) ** -- What can I say about this wonderful piece by HPL? If you haven't read anything by Lovecraft, the story of the Whateley family in Dunwich, MA, who try to bring in "a kind of force that doesn't belong in our part of space" is a great starting point.  
 Margaret Irwin, “The Book”**  -- An old book "speaks" to its owner, who feels he must carry out the tome's orders, to a point.  Deliciously creepy, the horror building slowly in this one.

Jean Ray, “The Mainz Psalter”** -- A schoolmaster sets up an expedition sailing from Glasgow -- after a while at sea,  it becomes apparent to the crew that something is dreadfully amiss. 
 Jean Ray, “The Shadowy Street”** -- Another favorite story, told from a French translation and a German one about strange events in a town where a man discovers a street no one else can see.  
 Clark Ashton Smith, “Genius Loci”  ** -- Clark Ashton Smith could write cereal box copy and I'd still read it with as much enthusiasm as I do all of his stories.  Here, a man entertains an artist friend for a few days, to discover that his friend is completely fascinated with a particular meadow.

Hagiwara Sakutoro, “The Town of Cats”** -- a wandering man with a poor sense of direction wanders into a strange town, and his tale is met with the reaction that it is the "demented illusion of a poet." But is it?
 Hugh Walpole, “The Tarn” * -- A bad house guest starts getting on his host's nerves, and the host acts on his feelings, with some pretty serious consequences.  

Bruno Schulz, “Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass” ** -- One of the ultimate best stories in this volume,  totally surreal, in which a man goes to visit his father at a sanatorium and ends up in a place of converging possibilities.  I have to buy the book of all of Schulz's stories now.
 Robert Barbour Johnson, “Far Below” ** -- While the average Joe may worry about what's happening on the streets of New York,  even greater dangers live below. Luckily, there are people down there taking care of things -- but there is a catch.  Super story. 

Fritz Leiber, “Smoke Ghost”(previously read) * -- A man discovers exactly what the "ghost of our time" would like, and tries his best to avoid it.  This story is a great commentary on American metropolitan concerns during the early 1940s.
Leonora Carrington, “White Rabbits” -- not one of my favorites, and a really gross tale about a woman with carnivorous rabbits.  The discovery made in the penultimate paragraph almost made me hurl. 

Donald Wollheim, “Mimic” -- another one that I wasn't really fond of, one that involves a lot of insects. This is the basis of the movie of the same name; luckily, the story is very short. 
 Ray Bradbury, “The Crowd”  ** -- Another wonderful story honing in on 20th century angst in a weird way.  A man is hurt in an accident, and a crowd closes in. But something is really wrong here and it leads him to start noticing weird coincidences afterwards.  

William Sansom, “The Long Sheet”  ** -- In terms of "weird," this one may just take the prize. A group of prisoners are given an odd condition for earning their freedom.  This story is an excellent study of human nature and it's so strange I had to read it twice. 
Jorge Luis Borges, "The Aleph" (previously read)  ** -- a wonderful story in which a poet shows a friend of his cousin's the "inconceivable universe" in the cellar of his home.  This story is just sheer genius.
 Olympe Bhely-Quenum, “A Child in the Bush of Ghosts”  ** -- A child's uncle takes him deep into a forest in Africa, and tells him to wait and not to move.  Instead, the child wanders into a place he should not be.  Very cool.

Shirley Jackson, “The Summer People”** -- Since it's Shirley Jackson, you already know it's going to be great. A couple who normally stay at their summer home until Labor Day decide to stay on past the holiday -- and it's probably not a good decision on their part.  The scare creeps up on you very slowly and the end, well, it's Shirley Jackson.
 Margaret St. Clair, “The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” -- another one I must confess that I wasn't so fond of,  deriving from Dunsany's Gnoles story above. 

Robert Bloch, “The Hungry House”  ** -- A man and his wife take on life in a truly haunted home in this story -- the backstory of how it got that way raises the bar for creepiness. Really good story.

Amos Tutuola, “The Complete Gentleman” * -- Another story set in Africa -- this time, a woman follows a "perfect gentleman" into a market and beyond, then disappears. Her father hires "Father of gods who could do anything in this world" to find her, making for a strange but very cool tale.
 Jerome Bixby, “It’s a Good Life” ** (this one was turned into 1) an original Twilight Zone episode and 2) a part of the later Twilight Zone movie.  In this story, a little boy named Anthony can read thoughts -- if he likes you, he might try to help you, and if not, well, things could be downright horrible. Ask his family and the other residents of the town of Peaksville, population 46.   Smile.   One of my favorites. 

Augusto Monterroso, "Mister Taylor" * --  A sudden craze for shrunken heads is at the root of this story -- with some freaky consequences for everyone in a particular area of the Amazon.  Another good one that will chill.

Julio Cortazar, “Axolotl”-- An aquarium in Paris is the setting for this strange little tale, about a guy becoming obsessed with an axolotl, sort of reminiscent of Zhuangzi's butterfly dream substituted with reptiles.

William Sansom, “A Woman Seldom Found” -- It seems that a man visiting Rome finds his perfect encounter in the shape of a veiled woman who invites him for a walk -- or does he? 
 Charles Beaumont, “The Howling Man” ** -- I'm a sucker for any story set in an old Abbey, and this one did not disappoint.  A tourist from New England decides to see Europe by bicycle and ends up in a "bosky wood" in Germany. After an accident he is taken in by the good brothers at the Abbey of St. Wulfran's, where he starts hearing screams that no one else seems to hear.  I loved this one.
 Mervyn Peake, “Same Time, Same Place” *  -- Seeking respite from his boring parents, a young man needs an escape and sets off to Picadilly Circus, where he meets a woman and it's love at first sight. She wants to meet tomorrow, same time, same place. From there, it just gets more bizarre. Another fine entry in this book.

Dino Buzzati, “The Colomber” * -- A ship captain is thrilled that his son wants to grow up to be just like him and spend his life on the sea, until one day the boy sees a strange fish.  His father his horrified, and quickly discourages him from ever going to sea again. But after dad dies, the boy decides to take to the ships.  This one has an ending I never saw coming.  Good. 

Michel Bernanos, “The Other Side of the Mountain”** -- A strange sea voyage leaves two crew members shipwrecked and stranded on an even stranger shore. The only hope for survival is to get to the other side of the mountain -- maybe.  Very well written, with a horrific ending that will send a shiver down your spine. 

Merce Rodoreda, “The Salamander”-- An affair with a married man leads to a woman's bizarre transformation in this story, which admittedly, just wasn't up there in my list of favorites.  

Claude Seignolle, “The Ghoulbird”* -- if you're out in the marsh of Gobble-Ox, and you hear the call of the Ghoulbird, run.  Lock your doors, put your hands over your ears and try not listen.  This is another one where the creepies slowly seep into your veins.
 Gahan Wilson, “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be”-- Here's another one I wasn't too fond of, where a group of friends decide to have some fun on the beach -- and then things get really crazy. A play on Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter," it does have some very weird moments. 
 Daphne Du Maurier, “Don’t Look Now”  ** -- Simply stunning, one of my favorite pieces in the entire book, but then again I'm a huge DuMaurier fan and have been for years.  Here, a couple getting over the death of their daughter decide to vacation in Italy, where they meet two sisters.  The vacation takes some decidedly strange turns afterwards.  Excellent. 

Robert Aickman, “The Hospice”** -- A lost driver on his way home stops in a forest, and looking for shelter, runs across a sign for "The Hospice." There's a recipe for the weird right there, but it gets even stranger as his time goes on.  
 Dennis Etchison, “It Only Comes Out at Night” * -- Driving through the desert of the American southwest and getting tired, a man decides to stop at a rest area late at night.  It might just be the worst idea he's ever had. Good.

James Tiptree Jr.,  “The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Terrible Things to Rats” -- I'm not a huge Tiptree fan to begin with, but this story just seemed sort of out of place here to me.  I read about half, and skipped the rest. 
 Eric Basso, “The Beak Doctor” * -- Perfectly atmospheric, it is the story of a masked man who makes his way through a town shrouded in fog while people fall prey to a strange sleeping sickness.  This story stands out because the writing creates such a claustrophobic setting that you have to take a breather before it's all finished.   
Jamaica Kincaid, “Mother”-- I'm sure a lot of people liked this story, but it just wasn't one I really got into. Another story of transformation that just didn't do it for me.
George R.R. Martin, “Sandkings”** -- One of the freakiest, creepiest stories in this book,  a collector of strange creatures takes home a species called Sandkings, who provide his friends with entertainment at first, then become much more than the collector bargained for.  This one just really creeped me out, causing me to be afraid to pick up the book dor a day or two. 
Bob Leman, “Window” ** -- When  a building and everything in it, including a researcher, disappears, something is left in its place -- a house with a lovely family right out of a Victorian painting, visible through a window on the past.  Another really good one.

Ramsey Campbell, “The Brood”  * -- A man who enjoys watching "the local characters" notices one of them missing -- a  woman who takes in strays. On edge, he decides to go and take a look when he hears something from inside her abandoned house.  Very bad idea.
Michael Shea, “The Autopsy” ** -- A dying doctor is called in to perform autopsies on people who were killed in a mine explosion.  His findings reveal something bizarre, but that's nothing compared to what happens when one of the bodies starts talking to him.  The end of this one may be one of the strangest endings I've ever read. 
William Gibson/John Shirley, “The Belonging Kind”  ** -- When a loner who doesn't belong anywhere falls for a girl he sees at a bar, he follows her -- and his life is literally transformed forever.  Yes! This is a really weird one.
M. John Harrison, “Egnaro”** -- This story touches on the madness of  a man's obsession about a country no one's ever heard of.  It's one of the best in the collection, extremely well written and just downright strange.
Joanna Russ, “The Little Dirty Girl” -- I was really into this tale about a little girl who keeps showing up -- but then it just sort of fizzled out for me.
M. John Harrison, “The New Rays”-- again, not one of the best, but still intriguing.  A strange clinic affords a patient the chance at being better -- but the cure might just be worse than being sick.  Very strange.
Premendra Mitra, “The Discovery of Telenapota”-- A story about leaving the "familiar" world and crossing into another.  So-so, not really one of the best.
F. Paul Wilson, “Soft” * -- Some sort of virus has spread and those who've survived are left with horrible aftereffects. At  least they're alive -- for now. But one man wonders about what the future might bring in this eerie and distressing tale.
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” -- Another one not to my taste -- more scifi than I enjoy in my weird fiction.  This story reveals a strange relationship between humans and a race of strange beings that use the humans for a strange purpose.
Clive Barker, “In the Hills, the Cities”  ** -- Oh lordy, I really loved this story. of two people traveling  through Yugoslavia exactly at the wrong time, when two towns engage in a bizarre competition.  I swear, this is one I'll never forget.
Leena Krohn, “Tainaron”-- another scifi-oriented tale, structured as a series of letters from a woman who has come to live in a city of insects. This one, although praised by critics, just didn't find an appreciative audience in me. 
Garry Kilworth, “Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands”-- An old woman who recently lost her pet decides she wants another.  She has parts of her body removed to create companions. Not a good idea.  Not bad, but definitely among the best in the book.
Lucius Shepard, “Shades”  ** -- A Vietnam vet returns to Vietnam to take part in a strange experiment and ends up dealing with a ghost from his past.  Excellent story, and a really good commentary on the war.
Harlan Ellison, “The Function of Dream Sleep”  ** -- Awakening from a grotesque dream, a man who's suffered a lot of loss in the recent past visits a group whose  members share his problem. Wildly weird and unsettling.
Ben Okri, “Worlds That Flourish”  * -- Trying to escape from a city under a dictatorship where people are disappearing, a man drives out into the forests, where he is advised not to head in the direction he is going.  But the nature of this story decrees, of course, that he doesn't listen.  Very good tale, kind of eerie as well as strange.
Elizabeth Hand, “The Boy in the Tree” * -- A young woman in an institution  is programmed to penetrate dreams through empathic powers, but these same abilities lead her into another woman's particular obsession. Very good, but I would expect nothing less from this author, who is one of my favorites.
Joyce Carol Oates, “Family” -- a family survives an apocalypse in all kinds of strange ways, but I wasn't very impressed by this story.
Poppy Z Brite, “His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood”** -- a most excellent story by one of my favorite writers, where two young men, bored with their lives, go well beyond the mundane into the world of graverobbing, with unforeseen consequences.  One of my favorite stories ever, and one of the best atmospheric tales out there.
Michal Ajvaz, “The End of the Garden”-- surreal isn't the word for this tale that begins with a fight between a woman and a Komodo dragon.  It just gets more bizarre from there.
Karen Joy Fowler, “The Dark”   **-- What do a wild boy found in a coyote burrow in Yosemite and a tunnel rat in Vietnam have in common? A researcher of the plague thinks he knows in this appropriately-titled story that creeped me through to the marrow. 
Kathe Koja, “Angels in Love”   *  -- Strange, but enjoyable story about a woman who can't help but overhear her neighbor having sex through the wall and decides she wants whatever her neighbor's having. While kind of silly, still some good shock value here.
Haruki Murakami, “The Ice Man" ** -- In my opinion, this is one of the best stories in the entire collection.  A woman meets and falls in love with an Ice Man -- a man made of ice.  They are very much in love, and everything is cool (no pun intended) until she decides they should take a vacation. This is Murakami at his very weird best.
Lisa Tuttle, “Replacements,"  * -- Another pet story in which women find strange creatures much more comforting than their men.  It is okay, with building creepiness and a lot of weirdness.
Marc Laidlaw, “The Diane Arbus Suicide Portfolio” -- When a suicide occurs, a police inspector arrives to take photographs -- and it changes him, but not nearly as much as a midnight visit with an anonymous caller who claims to have photographed the suicide itself.  Weird, but not quite up to speed with the others in this book.
Steven Utley, “The Country Doctor”  ** -- Returning to the hometown of generations of his family,a man runs into some archaeologists doing their work prior to the graves being moved.  Together they come across something incredibly strange that may explain particular family traits.  This one is just a great story all around.
William Browning Spenser, “The Ocean and All Its Devices”   ** -- Weirder than a number of stories in this book, an odd  family returns to an oceanside motel every year.  This  year's visit is full of surprises for everyone. I loved, absolutely loved this story. 
Jeffrey Ford, “The Delicate” -- Disguised and at a spa, an entity goes around sucking the lives out of people. Now, having read other reviews of this story, I feel bad that I wasn't impressed, but well, there it is.
Martin Simpson, “Last Rites and Resurrections”  * -- an ode to grief and loss, a man begins to hear the voices of dead animals. Poignant, and at times funny, I liked this one.
Stephen King, “The Man in the Black Suit” -- Why the editors chose to include this story, which is not one of King's best short works, is beyond me. A boy goes fishing and becomes bait for the devil.
Angela Carter, “The Snow Pavilion”  ** -- Stuck in the snow and sneaking shelter, the narrator of this story goes into a grand house and enters a nightmare.  Talk about atmospheric! Loved this one.
Craig Padawer, “The Meat Garden” * -- at war with vegans whose ammo causes strange effects -- now there's a very weird concept. This one's good...
Stepan Chapman, “The Stiff and the Stile” -- an odd riff on an old nursery tale, which I remember as "The Old Woman and Her Pig" or something like that, now it's a corpse that won't go over the stile. Weird, but seems sort of out of place here.
Tanith Lee, “Yellow and Red”  * -- A modern and rather haunting ghost story in which a man goes to take care of business and close up the old family home which he starts hating not long after he arrives.  It reminds me a lot of  an updated M.R. James story.  Really good.
Kelly Link, “The Specialist’s Hat”  * -- Twin girls and their workaholic dad are spending the summer together in an old house called Eight Chimneys.  When dad decides to go out, the babysitter, who says she used to live in the house  arrives, and the three play some very odd games.  Another tale with slowly building horror that just creeps up your spine.
Caitlin R. Kiernan, “A Redress for Andromeda”  ** -- It's Halloween and a young woman is invited to a party at a remote house where, before the night is over, she realizes she's there for a specific reason.  I LOVED this story, and Kiernan is one of my all-time favorite writers. 
Michael Chabon, “The God of Dark Laughter”  * -- A DA investigates a bizarre murder of man dressed in a clown suit, and the case leads him to quit his job after stumbling upon a battle between two strange cults. The blurb prior to the story mentions "references to Lovecraft" (check) and "a nod to the work of Edgar Allan Poe" (check again).  Good story.
China Mieville, “Details”  **  (previously read) -- I really love this story, where a boy's mother makes him visit a woman in a yellow house, and he discovers that "the devil is in the details." The first time I read this I was deliciously on edge; time and a reread has changed nothing.
Michael Cisco, “The Genius of Assassins”  * -- Murderers reveal their stories in this floaty, surreal tale, which is truly full-blown weird.  
Neil Gaiman, “Feeders and Eaters”  ** -- Waiting in an all-night cafe, a guy meets up with an old friend who tells him an amazing story about when he was living in the attic of a home and a woman he met there.  Amazingly good.
Jeff VanderMeer, “The Cage”  ** -- Okay -- I have to say here and now that this is the first story by Jeff VanderMeer I've ever read. Now that I've read it, I will be reading more.  When a man at a sale picks up a cage and brings it to his shop, strange things start happening all around him.  It's a travesty that I'm only giving small descriptions here, because this story is one of the weirdest ever.  Excellent.
Jeffrey Ford, “The Beautiful Gelreesh” *-- "The world is a ball of shit adrift in a sea of sin and the sooner one passed to heaven the better," is a life lesson the creature of the title came to live by.  He spends his life "curing" people of their depression.  Creepy.
Thomas Ligotti, “The Town Manager”  ** -- Another one I absolutely loved, "The Town Manager" may be weird, but it's also an excellent satirical piece as well.  A town goes through a series of changes, depending on who the town manager might be -- and every time, no one knows what's coming.  Simply superb.
Brian Evenson, “The Brotherhood of Mutilation”  ** -- Another really bizarre but excellent story which the crime-fiction reader in me loved.  It's noirish in tone, really, as a poor guy who just wants to be left alone after a strange incident causes him to lose a hand is sought out for his heroism after cauterizing his own wound -- then dragged into a strange murder case as a detective.
Mark Samuels, “The White Hands” ** -- A professor at Oxford loses his job due to his strange teaching style, and spends his now leisure time studying a now-dead author of ghost stories named Lilith Blake.  He is, in fact, an expert on the woman.  An author, who plans to write about Blake in a piece about supernatural writers meets up with the professor, undoubtedly a meeting that will change his life and the world as he knows it forever.  Very nicely done, very creepy.
Daniel Abraham, “Flat Diana”  * -- The story obviously builds from the Flat Stanley craze; here a man makes a "Flat Diana" of his daughter and starts sending it around to relatives to take their photos with.  A good dad, the man just wants his little girl to know that there are people all over who love and care about her.  But evidently, along with the "Flat Diana," he sends along something unexpected.  Good story.
Margo Lanagan, “Singing My Sister Down”  * -- A family comes out to watch the death of a daughter in this beyond strange tale.  Delightfully eerie and morbid.
T.M. Wright, “The People on the Island”  ** -- You'll be shaking your head while you read this one, where a couple is alone on the island except for a few "friends."  Isolation can really get to people.  Loved it.
Laird Barron, “The Forest”  ** -- I love Laird Barron, and I really like this story that I first read in  Occultation. A cinematographer  is invited to what will become both a reunion and a goodbye in the New England woods, hosted by a filmmaker  into  "untangling the enigmas of evolutionary origins and ultimate destination."  The cinematographer definitely finds out the ultimate destination for one of his friends, in this eerie tale.
Liz Williams, “The Hide”  * -- Two sisters Claire and Jude, along with Claire's boyfriend Richard, discover a bird hide on an old causeway along an estuary, and while they're watching the wildlife, they glimpse two birds, the likes of which none of them have ever seen before.  The experience will change them all.  Very good story.
Reza Negarestani, “The Dust Enforcer” * -- Very weird, with drawings -- this piece reads like an encyclopedia entry about the demon of epidemics.  I really need to get the book it came from, Cyclonopedia.  Cool.
Micaela Morrissette, “The Familiars”  * -- You might wish to read this story especially if your child has an imaginary friend.  In this little tale, a boy whose best friend is his mom comes up with an imaginary playmate.  All is well for a while, until it's time for school to start.  Creepifying and very strange, but also good.
Steve Duffy, “In the Lion’s Den”  (previously read) *  -- I read this in Datlow's Best Horror of the Year Volume 2, a dark tale about what really goes on among the animals in the zoo that no one really notices until someone goes into the lion's den.  Eerie.
Stephen Graham Jones, “Little Lambs” ** -- In the middle of nowhere in a Wyoming desert, an isolated crew of men are on duty guarding an odd structure that seems to be the "metal guts of a prison built in West Virginia in 1918." The building had collapsed killing everyone in it some 8 plus years earlier, but there were strange tales of an ex-lumberjack who may have had something to do with the collapse. The building is also moving.   Here, the sheer isolation of it all after 96 months of watching is the real star in this tale -- I really, really liked this one.
K.J. Bishop, “Saving the Gleeful Horse” -- A giant trader of flotsam who works under a bridge comes across a little striped horse that the trader names the Gleeful Horse, which is in reality "a treasure animal." While I enjoyed the story, I just didn't think it had as weird of a feel as most of the other tales in this volume.

WHEW!  I'm giving myself pats on the back not only for finishing this book, but for finishing this post! 

*NOS4A2, by Joe Hill

9780062200570
William Morrow/Harper Collins, 2013
692 pp

hardcover

Well, this book might not be the best work of horror I've ever read, but it's certainly one I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished.  Considering its length of nearly 700 pages, it's the perfect summer read.  If you're a fan of Stephen King, you'll also notice that NOS4A2 is chock full of elements from King's novels.  I'm not a huge fan of mainstream horror, but I predict that this book is going to be a runaway best seller.

I can't go too much into plot here because I don't want to wreck things for anyone.  The novel begins with a brief prologue where one of the main themes emerges. A nurse who works at a prison hospital ward is considering whether or not she should buy her son a Nintendo DS. She's held out as long as she could, because she doesn't like how

 "little boys disappeared into the glowing screen, ditching the real world for some province of the imagination where fun replaced thought and inventing creative new kills was an art form. She had fantasized about having a child who would love books and play Scrabble and want to go on snowshoeing expeditions with her. What a laugh."

I won't explain how this idea carries through, but you'll see.

As the story gets rolling, Victoria McQueen, aka "Vic" or "the brat" is a young girl from a less-than-perfect family, but she has a secret:  when something is lost, she can ride her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike across the nearby Shortway Bridge and find it.  That doesn't seem like much of a big deal, but once inside the bridge, she is delivered to the place where she will find what she seeks -- wherever it is.  The journeys take their toll on her, both mentally and physically so she only goes through the bridge and back a limited number of times. As a teen, one ride in particular changes her life forever -- after some major trouble with mom at home, she takes her bike through the bridge, only to run smack into Charlie Manx, a truly evil man who is responsible for a large number of children disappearing.  Luckily Vic didn't end up as another missing person, but the encounter leaves psychological trauma and scars she can never escape -- and comes back to haunt some years later.

Now, this description may not sound much like a horror novel, but that's a barebones outline of the main plot.  Where it gets fun is in how Joe Hill constructs a horror story around it.  The very first scene scared the bejesus out of me -- and I was thinking that if this is how the first chapter's going to go, I'm belting myself in for one wild and scary ride.  Manx drives an old Rolls Royce Wraith (with a license plate reading  NOS4A2), and he uses his car to whisk away kidnapped children to a place called Christmasland, a place that totally perverts the idea of a child's innocent and magical joy associated with the holiday.  Like Vic's bridge, Christmasland is part of  Manx's  inner landscape ("inscape"), conjured up in his thoughts but real all the same.  Once the children are there,  they become his for eternity.   He literally sucks the innocence right out of them, a vampirish act that he justifies by his sincere belief that he is saving them. Manx's partner is a bizarre character named Bing  who works with gases dentists use and who reminded me very much of The Trashcan Man from Stephen King's The Stand (especially when Bing pledges "my life for you" much as Trashcan Man did for Randall Flagg). Bing is a damaged loony who finds Manx through an ad he found about employment at Christmasland in an old pulp novel that belonged to his father.  Bing himself had had a special Christmas in his own life one year, receiving a Korean War gasmask and playing games where he killed his mother and father, and was so happy that he wonders what he would do to feel like that all of the time.  He's so out there that he sends in money to advertisers in books that are older than he is, yet unlike the other ads of bygone days, he actually receives an answer from Christmasland.  Other major characters include Maggie, who reads scrabble tiles that give her certain abilities (again at costs both mental and physical), Lou, a big man/child who loves motorcycles, Star Wars and superheroes,  and Wayne, the son of Vic and Lou.

I actually found this book less  horror-creepy than psychologically disturbing.  Children are abducted from their homes and separated from parents whose resistance is weakened to zero when Bing starts the gas flowing.  The parents meet horrible fates as well; luckily the author doesn't give blow-by-blow accounts but what he writes is terrifying enough. While the dustjacket gives ample warning, some of what happens to these parents is just downright chilling and not fun to think about afterwards. There's also enough fast-paced action in this book to keep thrill-ride readers happy.  But speaking of pacing, I found this book to be a bit uneven at times -- especially toward the end where the action happens so quickly in contrast to the rest of the story.

For a summer read, I had mixed feelings: I found it to be awesome but incredibly disturbing both while I was reading and afterward. That doesn't mean I didn't like it ... au contraire ... as sick as it was sometimes, I couldn't put this book down.  It was also fun finding references to various Stephen King novels throughout the novel and I was even more overjoyed to find a brief extension of the story in the notes on the type (don't miss it).  Recommended.

Degrees of Fear and Others, by C.J. Henderson

9781888993578
Dark Regions Press, 2008
266 pp

trade paper, signed

"...there is no such thing as bravery; only degrees of fear"..."Find a degree you can live with, and carry on."

I recently discovered Dark Regions Press and in skimming titles, came across one of my favorite authors, C.J. Henderson.  I first encountered this writer in The Occult Detectives of C.J. Henderson at a time when I couldn't get enough of psychic investigators (and truth be told, I still love reading about them).  From there it was on to the Teddy London series -- I read the first one and bought the entire set. Then I got my hands on his The Tales of Inspector Legrasse, a host of stories featuring the character from Lovecraft's original Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.  The Supernatural Tales of C.J. Henderson also sits on the shelves, and whenever his work showed up in anthologies,  those books made it into my home library as well.  I also recently bought book 1 of the Piers Knight series, Brooklyn Knight.  I have yet to try the Kolchak stories, but I foresee that series making its way to my house here shortly.  I also love his take on Lin Carter's character Anton Zarnak.  In short -- I  like this guy's work.

picture from Wicca Girl

Now to get down to business. While not every story was to my exact taste, the case in any anthology, there are a number of good ones in this collection. While a number of these tales are Lovecraft inspired, there are others that are more original in nature.

Listing out the stories in this anthology, the book begins with "The Gardener," where a wealthy and powerful business man comes on his yearly visit to help out his "aged and frail and withered"  parents in Kingsport, RI.  This year he decides to stay an extra week -- and all hell breaks loose. Literally.

2. "Admission of Weakness," which gives the impression of being Henderson's first Anton Zarnak tale, is a good one. The psychic investigator, who literally holds the weight of the world's survival on his shoulders, comes to New York with an aura of "smug self-satisfaction" then becomes quickly chastened by his first case in the Big Apple once he gets to work.

3. "Hope," which is one of the non-Lovecraftian tales, is set in "the Stygian depths" and  follows a damned soul who finds a little glimmer of hope in his eternal suffering -- with a nasty, mean-spirited twist.

4. "Misery and Pity. " Jhong, a man who spent some time in America "chasing and banishing" vampires   meets his friend for dim sum in a restaurant in Hong Kong, and takes on a Chinese vampire known as the "Ch'iang Shich" (jiangshi in modern Chinese -- 彊屍).  The character of Jhong also appeared in Some Things Never Die (1993) from the Teddy London series.

5. "Incident on Highway 19",  chronicles the slow undoing of a highway worker whose job it is to keep the roads clean of road kill.  This one is downright creepy, as the guy's strange obsession unfolds.

6. "That's the One!" probably my least favorite story in the book -- a strange twist on Lewis Carroll in the realm of the weird.

7.  "A Happy Mother Takes Away Pain," featuring another character from the Teddy London series, Lai Wan, who also is the featured heroine of Lai Wan: The Dreamwalker.  Lai Wan takes on the case of ridding a dying mother of a demon -- a pretty good story that makes you think about yourself when all is said and done.

8. "Body and Soul," a Lovecraft-inspired tale if ever there was one.  Re-animator Herbert West returns in a rather strange story where he meets up with  Thomas Malone, the erstwhile police detective from HPL's "Horror at Red Hook."  I won't say more -- this one I found to be a little so-so.

9. "The Horror,"  - a very short story about one man's particular horror that no one else seems to take too seriously. Again, not one of my favorites. 

10. "A Forty Share in Innsmouth," written in 1997 but extremely relevant in today's reality TV-crazy society .  If you've read Brian Lumley's "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash," you'll recollect an earlier ritual that went somewhat awry.  In this story, a reality-TV host decides to fill a stadium and repeat the procedure.  Possibly not a good idea.

11. "Sacrifice,"  a bleak, disturbing  tale that I can only describe as gruesome.  How does one appease the gods of suffering in the world? One man takes it on. Thankfully, this one is very short.

12. "Pop Goes the Weasel."  The club Uproar will thrill and chill, and anyone can take center stage and do anything on their own, or with the props supplied by the management.  Pressure from the audience decides if one sinks or swims.  This was a cool, off-kilter little tale, and I loved the premise! 

13."The Questioning of the Azathothian Priest" I read this a long time ago in Hardboiled Cthulhu.  A man in custody for a series of extremely grotesque murders dies while being questioned by Zarnak and Captain Mark Thorner of the New York city police.  There are two reports of what happened: the truth, and the one that is safe for the public to know.  It's a good one.

14. "Pragmatic" is the story that prompted me to buy the first Piers Knight book -- not so much for the story itself (which all in all is just a little silly) but because of the character of Professor Piers Knight.  Knight travels to Munich to protect a baby that is about to be born from cosmic forces.  I won't say why, but it's a cool little tale.

15. "The Laughing Man" is one of those stories that could have been left out and I never would have noticed.  Set in 878 AD,  Vikings meet Valkyries in a rather ghostly tale. Meh.

16. "The Soul's Right Hand" is a  Teddy London story chock full of Halloween lore and more.  I liked this one not just for the story, but also because it calls attention to the media's habit of trying and convicting people in the public eye. I loved the ending!

17. "So Free We Seem" features Inspector Legrasse, and poses a tantalizing puzzle involving a dead man and a room full of traps.  Excellent.

18. "The Longest Pleasure" is a rather short but nasty tale of revenge out in the middle of the desert -- really, what some people won't do to get back at someone!

 19. "Juggernaut," another Teddy London story.  This time he's trying to help a human target of the Hounds of Tindalos.  While the message of the "greater good" is embedded here, the story itself is just a little rocky.  Not one of the best in the book.

and last, but by no means least, to the asylum for #20.  "Degrees of Fear." There are changes at the Derringol Asylum for the Hopeless,  "civilization's dumping ground for the absolute dregs of the world's nightmares."  The director, who'd been at the same job for decades,  is stepping down, and a younger,  ambitious new guy is taking his place. However,  before the incumbent leaves, he has something he really needs to show the new guy.  Creepy.

So there you have it... overall, a very good collection of stories.  For me out of 20 there were about three that I didn't really care for, a couple that were just in the so-so range, and several good ones, all dealing with the idea that "Our world touches upon other worlds, other realities."  I can recommend this anthology; it would be helpful if you've had some reading experience with Henderson's Teddy London or with HP Lovecraft's stories of cosmic horror before starting this one.

They That Dwell in Dark Places, by Daniel McGachey

9781888993721
Dark Regions Press
345 pp



Ever on the lookout for those stories that will send the odd shiver up my spine, I happened on this collection of 13 tales, which, according to the blurb on the back are  "stories told by firelight in isolated cottages, by lantern-light on storm-lashed beaches, by gaslight in scholars' studies and clubrooms, or by twilight in libraries and in lonely asylum cells." For someone like myself, who much prefers old-school horror and supernatural tales to more modern fare (with a few exceptions),  the words on the cover were like an invitation to settle into one of my wing-back chairs with a cup of hot tea and enjoy the ride. While not all of the stories quite measured up to my expectations, I can't say I was at all disappointed as the author reveals that they who "dwell in dark places do not wish to be forgotten," and that they "like you to know that we are here, always..." 


Introduced by Charles Black, the stories in this book are as follows:

1) "The Shadow in the Stacks," which introduces the recurring character of Dr. Lawrence, a "folklorist" who spends a lot of time and energy collecting the "fables and folktales of antiquity."
2) "The Mound," where a man who knows every inch of his garden notices something new and obsesses over it until it's too late;
3) "The Beacon" finds a familiar theme in ghost lore set in an offshore lighthouse;
4) "Shalt Thou Know My Name?" finds Dr. Lawrence on the receiving end of an eerie tale involving a plagiarist and a confession from the 18th century;
5) "The Wager," one of my favorites, where a gambler is told about some action at the "astonishing" Club Tenebrosa with very high stakes;
6) "The Crimson Picture," one of the better stories in this book, where an artist discovers he has a hidden ability where it comes to painting, but it's not such a good thing, as it turns out;
7) "Rags," another good one, where a traveler separated from his party passes by a tree adorned with rags before he understands its significance;
8) "The Travelling Companion," in which a traveling salesman buys a book, refuses to part with it, and suffers the consequences ... another one I really liked;
9) "A Ravelled Tress:" actually, this one was probably my least favorite, where a "thick tress of black hair" with a bizarre history is found in a rotting pile of books in an old house as a precursor to ensuing mayhem;
10) "And Still Those Screams Resound" is my favorite story in the book, dealing with one man's unchecked obsession.  This is probably one of the more frightening tales in the book, not so much for the supernatural content, but because of the subject;
11) "An Unwise Purchase," a tale as written by Dr. H.S. Grace, a graduate of St. Montague's, Master of Rhodes House College, then Head Master of St. James's School.  Another one of my favorites in this book, a strange brass carving of the three wise monkeys turns out to be the "unwise purchase" of the title.

from vegetableoildiesel.co.uk

 12) "The Unmasking: An Evening of Revels and Revelations," adds a touch of the surreal as Dr. Lawrence and two other guests at a masqued party are forced to put on borrowed masks; not everyone is left  to tell the tale of what happened afterwards.  I liked this one as well; and finally
13) "They That Dwell in Dark Places," another one I don't count as a personal favorite,but it's still a fun little story that starts with a gathering on Halloween. 

At the end the author adds notes on each of his stories, revealing his inspirations and his own thoughts as well. 

I love the work of M.R. James, and it's definitely obvious that McGachey does too.  While this book is  often similar in tone, it never devolves into a mere James pastiche; there's plenty to admire about Mr. McGatchey's writing on its own.  The author is best at creating and sustaining the dark, creepy  atmosphere that pervades this book, although sometimes in trying to capture period speech patterns, the narrative comes across as a bit clunky and it can become a little off-putting.  They That Dwell in Dark Places, imho, is best suited for readers who like good, old-fashioned ghost stories without all the gore, sex and thrill-a-minute action that modern horror seems to thrive on. The stories in this book will probably seem pretty tame to contemporary  readers, so if antiquarians digging through old tomes or strange goings on in old houses don't appeal,  then you may want to move along. However, if you enjoy this sort of thing, definitely pick up a copy.  I'll look forward to more by this author, especially if  he continues with the ghostly tales. And someday, maybe he'll set down the story of the traveling mausoleum!