A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories

 

A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories by Adam S. Cantwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: Adam Cantwell and I are what was historically-termed "pen pals". Or at least we've written a few letters to each other. If you can't handle the fact that this review is likely biased by our correspondence, then maybe you should just bugger off. I like Adam. And I like his writing. There, I said it.

In my miserable berth I grew deathly ill. The cold and torpor drew what was left of me to my low-lying parts; here my pain and ennui sloshed and settled and was distilled. The whispering proximity of the lethal sea called these dregs down ever further, and day after day my spirit seeped through tar and pitch and blackly down.

My liquid remains decanted through desert voids of seawater. It was an alien medium, primal, its essence was not the tang that clings to the red flesh of salmon or the morning chill borne on the fog but the dead-cold and salt of bones and freezing stars. My nothing-substance popped and dispersed, particles radiant from the dumb core, shreds of lost desire given over to huge black currents.

This quote, from the opening story "Orphans on Granite Tides" should give you a notion of the solace and comfort you'll find within the pages of A Forest with its Mouth Open Wide & Other Stories, i.e., none. I've earlier reviewed this story (I have the original publication from Les Editions de L'Oubli (aka Mount Abraxas Press), though this is the revised text as it originally appeared in Bastards of the Absolute , which I have not read. I don't know what the exact revisions are, but this version seems a hint darker than the Mount Abraxas version. Maybe I'll ask him in my next letter. I seem to owe him one, especially since his last mailing was a short stack of vinyl records from his musical projects Spaceboy and Villains.

The second story, "Black Chroma," is set in what seems to be a post-apocalypse, though it may be the structure of the narrator's mind that is collapsing (this may be the case with many of the narrators in this volume), rather than civilization. Paranoia and agoraphobia combine to expose (him?) to the bright pinpoint lights of the cosmos, a nakedness only occulted by self-burial.

Profoundly existential, yet hopelessly defiant (I am reminded of one of my favorite poems, William Ernest Henley's Invictus ), "The Chamber in the Universe" examines monuments, devotion, power, hope, and death. The temple representing as empty vessel exposing the hollowness of existence, while being the instrument by which the common-builder nudges the cosmos, even a particle's-width; one of the most human of desires: to matter, even when nothing matters. To make one's mark forever in the void.

"The European Monster Part Two" is dark and obtuse, much like the philosophy of Emil Cioran, the inferred inspiration for the story (first published in a volume of stories dedicated to the Romanian philosopher). Here the narrator finds himself in a labyrinthine situation, becoming a part of a (political? criminal?) machine at the heart of which is the titular monster, perhaps a modern Minotaur.

"Torso in Shadow" puts the baffled and baffling narrator in the subways beneath NYC, which may or may not be disintegrating above. Surely it is convulsing, socially or physically. Amidst these convulsions, in the underground, the narrator meets a woman. Perhaps this is Adam and Eve witnessing the birthing pains of a new world. Difficult to tell. But the attempt must be made. An ouroboros of a story, eating itself.

Originally written for a tribute anthology to Borges, "The Bow, the Arm, the Arrow" echoes the Argentine writer's sometimes-journalistic style, but with a tonal nod to Millhauser, as well. The story reminds me of a long-form vlog I recently watched about the composer Penderecki (a favorite of mine), but with the narrator experimenting with literature, rather than music. Sometimes experiments go wrong.

The titular story in the volume actually appeared alongside one of my own stories in the Mount Abraxas anthology Frostsigils , an homage to Paysage d'Hiver. As one would expect, it is dark, downright Gothic, and one can feel the cold sink into one's bones while reading. It's all about atmosphere, and it delivers that in shadowed robes with the deep moaning toll of an immense black iron bell.

With "Vod the Wrecker," I again find myself as "TOC mates" with Adam in the Raphus Press anthology Ghost Trains. But where I treated the train in question as a haunting presence, here, Vod is the brooding master, a near-god, over the twisted metal entrails of what was once the most powerful force in America. Vod destroys, remakes, and rides the bones of the ur-train like a pyrrhic steed, into oblivion.


In the amber-filtered urine-gray aged-out green glass of insulators, crystallizing dumbly over centuries, he saw an enviable solitude and immobility. The enamel of insignia and livery, some burned to peacock craquelure; the bent-blue of sulking steel glazed over with a million dullnesses of black and charcoal.

Transformation of the individual and of the world are the subject of "The Oligomancer". Here a migrant child of an itinerant oil-platform worker watches the world turn inside out from a privileged (so to speak) observation point on the derelict platform. A slowly unfolding apocalypse gives indicators from the horizon about the collapse of the outside world, which can't help but affect his own inner world. Again, the line between psychic and physical reality is not only blurred, it is completely shattered.

And, finally, "The Hag, the Cutthroat, the Amputee" is the musing of a being who, like Charon of Greek myth, ferries the dead across to their final destination, particularly those whose demise is caused by war. He(?) is very adamant to note that he is not Charon, and his thoughts regarding the dead make it clear that he does not share the detached observations of his more famous counterpart.

Those are the stories and my skewed observations of them. You want objectivity? Good luck finding it in this universe. But I will end by deferring to one of the great nihilists of our age, Thomas Ligotti, who stated, quite correctly:

The stories of Adam Cantwell's . . . could be fairly equated with the works of Kafka or Borges if their prose were not so luxuriant and surprising at every turn.

I have nothing more to add.


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The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young

 

The Shub-Niggurath Cycle: Tales of the Black Goat with a Thousand Young by Robert M. Price
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this years ago, about twenty years ago, in fact, when I was finishing graduate school. I'll be honest, I don't remember if I owned the book and got rid of it or if I got it from the library, but, in any case, I didn't have my own copy for a long, long time. So, when I spotted this at a local antique store for a pittance, I just sprang for it. The question is, would it live up to my now-higher expectations of writing craftsmanship?

Lewis Spence's "The Horn of Vipula" was pulp as they come, with everything that implies: predictability, a not-so-surprise ending, plot "reaches" like miniature deus-ex-machina, and language that strives to be better than it really is. Meh. Not a great start to the anthology.

M.P. Dare tries to channel M.R. James in "The Demoniac Goat". He's largely successful but lacks the full gravitas of the master of the ghost story. Still, a decent enough story about an ostensibly dead priest and his pet goat. Well, who was the pet, really?

Even the editor notes the hackneyed subject matter of J.S. Leatherbarrow's "The Ghostly Goat of Glaramara". I agree with the editor's assessment. Ostensibly, he put it in the anthology for historical reasons. But some history is best forgotten.

I've read and enjoyed Ramsey Campbell's "The Moon-Lens" before, and while many consider it something akin to juvenalia, with a structure that pastiche's Lovecraft's own, I still find something intriguing here. It bridges the gap between folk horror and cosmic horror in a way that highlights the strong points of each. Maybe I just have a soft spot for it, as I would likely rate it more highly than others.

Careful restraint is not the watchword in John Glasby's "The Ring of the Hyades". Lovecraft's greatest folly: naming the un-nameable, describing the indescribable, leaks into Glasby's writing like a Rorschach test of purple prose. The story is alright, but rather predictable for anyone even vaguely familiar with the Mythos. I suppose that makes it a safe read for fans, but it would be jarring for newcomers.

During my years as an editor, I had an unbreakable rule that I would never publish my own work in an anthology I was editing. Price, in his . . . uh, work(?) "A Thousand Young" provides a shining example of why every editor should take this ethical stance. I hated this story. It was a twelve-year old's darkest sexual fantasy. Oh, and trigger warning: R**E. Yeah, no. No stars, not even one. Just . . .don't.

Odd that a story so poor as Price's should be followed by a sandal and sorcery story so nearly perfect as Richard L. Tierney's "The Seed of the Star God". Price can't write them, but he can pick them! Now I'm wondering if there is a full collection of Simon of Gitta's tales. I would read that! Sword, sorcery, and sacrifice in the decadence of the Roman Empire. SPQR!

It's not the story that sang to me. Glen Singer's "Harold's Blues" is an old tale, a very tried and true tale, about selling one's soul for music. You already know the story, from start to finish. But the register in which this was sung . . .well, that's where the magic lies. That old, dark magic that brings songs and storms and screams in the night. Familiar, but unsettling.

Lin Carter may have been a better writer of Lovecraftian tales than Lovecraft himself. "Dreams in the House of Weir," a story steeped in the mythos, but with just a modicum more of restraint than HPL lacked, teases the horror out instead of bashing readers over the head with it. There's a slow pull on the thread of cosmic horror here that unwinds one's sanity. If your dreams become wondrous, you should start to fear.

. . . and Carter further demonstrates his skilled pen by way of the poem "Visions from Yaddith," which is quoted in the previous story. I'm rather curious which came first? The story? Or the poem? Each path carries some interesting implications about the writing process that I need to ponder on a while. I could see each having its benefits, and I've done both, but without much intentionality. I must think on this. It's been a while since I've tried my hand at poetry.

I wavered on M.L. Carter's "Prey of the Goat". It swung from interesting to hackneyed, back to good, then to trite, wallowing in mediocrity. In the end, I'm in the "meh" camp, with a slight twinge of "interesting," but not interesting enough to take me beyond a bland assessment. Could-have-beens and all that rot.

"Sabbath of the Black Goat" carried a not-so-surprising ending. Add to this the hyper-compressed, yet somehow thin info dump by Stephen M. Rainey and you have a rushed, middling story. I suspect there was some word count restriction on the story, but whether the story should have been longer or shorter is difficult to say. It's clear, though, that the pulp suit just doesn’t quite fit right.

Another Price story, but this one co-authored with Peter H. Cannon, "The Curate of Temphill" reads somewhere between M.R. James and Umberto Eco; meaning I quite liked it. I have to attribute this to the co-authorship(?), something I've done myself with good results (with author Brendan Connell, whose work I continue to greatly admire). This tale of Templars and heretical prophecies is an unexpected and welcome find in such an anthology. No Old Ones here, but they are not needed.

David Kaufman's "Grossie" might be the most effective story of this anthology (and also has the worst title, though it fits). It's as subtle as Lovecraft is unsubtle. There is a menace of place here and the faint aroma of ancestral evil, just enough to pique the imagination, just enough for the reader to really feel the underlying horror without facing it directly, an underlying genius loci with inimical intent. Don't be fooled by the puerile title. Another tale where the Old Ones don't make a direct appearance, and they don't have to. In fact, having an "unspeakable" horror show its face would have destroyed this beautiful (but dark) story.

"To Clear the Earth" is a story lost and found to me. I remember, in the mid-90s, reading a mythos story that made a deep impression on me. It was cosmic horror writ-large, on an Earth-ending scale, but in more of a science fiction paradigm than horror. The setting was Antarctica (which makes me wonder why it wasn't in the Antarktos Cycle). And here it is, by Will Murray (also the author of the Doc Savage and Destroyer series). It doesn't resonate as much now. I was surprised by the ending (which I had forgotten), so that wasn't the problem. I think it might be the pulp-adventure tone of the second half of the story, or maybe it was the info-dumping that took place throughout. I guess it was needed back in the day, but nowadays the Mythos lore is so common as to be trite. Or maybe I've just played so much Call of Cthulhu that I recoil at explanatory passages, especially ones about the Necronomicon. In any case, the story, while good, didn't have the same magic (nefarious or otherwise), as it did last century.

So, alas, the me of twenty years ago enjoyed this anthology far more than the me of now does. Age happens. Experience happens. Nostalgia happens. And sometimes, nostalgia is deceptive. Live and learn.

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Garycon 2026 Preview

 Here's what's coming my way at Garycon 2026 (presuming it's not cancelled due to WWIII). Shadowdark, Traveller, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Empire of the Petal Throne, Riverbank (I am VERY excited to play this!!!), Vaesen, War of the Ring, and, of course, Call of Cthulhu:

Addendum:

A spot opened up on one of the games I wanted to get in, but couldn't at first, so I took it. It's another Traveller game, which means I'm not going to be playing Vaesen this time around. There are typically more Vaesen games offered at Gameholecon, anyway, so I'll pick one up then. Just couldn't pass up the chance to pick up a mercenary ticket!!!

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Dark Arts

 

Dark Arts by Eric Stener Carlson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me start by saying that I absolutely love Tartarus Press. In fact, I just had Mark Valentine's most recent collection from them show up in my mail this past week. My first Tartarus book was a copy of Meyrink's The Golem, which a good friend of mine gifted me many, many years ago. I think I own about twelve volumes from Tartarus, most of them hardcovers (though I'd have to verify that number). I've never been disappointed by a Tartarus publication. Unfortunately, that streak may have come to an end with the current volume. Carlson's Dark Arts isn't bad, it's just not up to par with the other Tartarus books I've read. I suppose not every volume can be outstanding. I also just encountered what I would consider Wakefield Press's weakest volume that I've read so far. Maybe it's a bad batch. Maybe it's just me, who knows? But I have to call them like I see them. And here is how I see each of the stories in this volume:

Can a story in which not one, but four deaths occur (one being an alleyway murder) be considered . . . comforting? Soft? Even loving? Carlson tells just such a tale in "Golden Book," in which an Ikiryo meets a young girl destined for her first encounter with death. This story is more of a blessing than a curse, as dark as it is.

"Coffee Shop" was ripe with dazzling poetics. Unfortunately, the incredible potential of the plot and language was unrealized. I wanted so much more than what the ending had to offer, but then again, that might have been the point of this story of trapped desperation?

I feel the same way about "Divining Rod" as I did about the last story. So much poetic potential, so little punch. This tale seemed to meander, directionless, like a series of disjunct writing exercises strung together on a frayed, insubstantial plot line. But again, maybe that was the point? I'll never know. Or maybe that is the point and I'm just too shallow of a reader to realize it?

I thought that maybe I would warm up to Carlson with the next tale. "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" is a touching (if tinged by horror) tale of a woman daring to become her childhood self, yet again. It's a bittersweet tale that doesn't telegraph the surprise ending, though one can likely figure out what's happening beforehand from the subtle cues left by the narrator. It's a Twilight-Zone-esque tale, which is one of the highest compliments I can give a story

Alas, the relative highs of "Leopard-Spotted Scarf" weren't reached again over the next few stories. "Corridor" is full of anticipatory horror past and present. Two journalists wait for the terrorists who are about to take them hostage. One has suffered throughout his life from an extreme neurosis about what will happen to him in the future. The other is terrified by the prospect of capture and death. But in this case, one's terrors can atone for the terror of another. A good (not great) tale of strange redemptions.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the thread of "Bradycardia". The heady mixture of dream and waking life, along with what might be psychosis, goaded along by a manipulative lover(?) gets almost too convoluted. There's a fine line between complex and incomprehensible, and I wavered over both sides of that line throughout.

The premise of "Stray," a story told by a dog about his many previous lives, was, to be honest, not to my liking. But Carlson handled that premise with tenderness and an ongoing emotional charge that won me over. I didn't like the idea, but the execution was handled by such a deft hand that I couldn't help but love the story.

Mood and atmosphere dominate "Strasse 60, Berlin". This story has a heightened sense of tension that gives it a higher ceiling of dread and eeriness than other stories thus far in the collection. The press of confusion is palpable. Chronology is shuffled and the narrator is misdirected by the phantoms of his own memories. A disconcerting, very effective story. This was more of what I had hoped for.

"Salt" is an excellent story of gaslighting by an authoritarian regime. It's a twisted narrative of unraveling untruth and an emotional gut punch to a narrator that may or may not be insane, but is absolutely in a lot of trouble.

Despite a baldly-telegraphed "twist" and some pushy histrionics, I rather liked "Monsieur Machine". Delivery aside, this was an excellent tale of love and ambition coming into stark contrast, then resolution of the dialectic. Given its mechanistic themes, there is an evocation of emotion that moves the reader while horrifying at the same time. Here love and loss combine to create awe and the awful.

I liked "I Loved You at Your Darkest," but didn't love it. Pardon the horrid attempt at a pun. Yes, the story twisted in an unexpected way, but resolved too quickly, in my mind, with the narrator able to make logical leaps using clues that shouldn't have evoked his conclusions. Another good, but not great tale, straining my belief a touch too much, which was the kiss of death (another horrible pun, given the plot).

I heard hinted echoes of Dhalgren in "The Atelier," a dystopian post-disaster (and pre-even-bigger-disaster) tale set in a fractured Europe held together by authoritarianism. But Delaney's novel was far superior to this tale, which is only a faint, thin shadow of the former. I found rays of hope in the hopelessness, but, again, this story just wasn't really "for" me.

Again, it's not a bad collection, just not up to my expectations of Tartarus' usual work. Do I regret buying it? No. I don't think I can ever regret buying a Tartarus title - they are, to me, the height of craftsmanship and elegant design. Would I buy it again, knowing what I know now? Also no. Like I said: maybe it's just me. High expectations + more experience over time = jadedness, I suppose. Then again, maybe it's not just me. You'll have to decide for yourself.

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Urx Quonox

 

Urx Quonox by Adam S. Cantwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm reading the Occult Press version, gifted to me and signed by Adam, 37/120 limited edition. Thanks, Adam!

I'm a big sword and sorcery fan, have been since the mid-70s, reading Savage Sword of Conan and the old Howard paperbacks. Here, with Grasm the Barbarian, Cantwell has taken S&S to a higher literary level, the inevitable evolution out of pulp and into thinking-man's writing, and I'm here for it.

If Robert E. Howard had cast aside all prudery and collaborated with William Burroughs, this might start to approximate the style of "The Monarch in Disarray," but this tale is much more transgressive, visceral, and psychedelic than that. It's a decadent sword & sorcery tale, pushed to carnal extremes with an emphasis on the sorcery and its deeper effects on the psyche. Grasm > Conan, maybe. The writing is head and shoulders above Howard's.

Another story of Grasm the Barbarian, "Scream of the Bluejay," is a barnacle-encrusted sea-salt soaked rope of a tale about revenental vengeance. While the center of attention in the story isn't the barbarian, it says much about him and twists in such a way as to wring out more of his past. It's a clever tale of sword and sorcery, of regret, betrayal, and murder; a hideously glorious, horrifically beautiful tale.

The final entry in the Grasm trilogy, "Cities Below the Strand," again puts an emphasis on sorcery over swords. No swords are drawn in this tale, but there is a deep cut of nihilism here, particularly as regards both the past and the future of Grasm himself. This is a small window into what could be a large, inglorious panorama both for the barbarian himself and for his world as a whole. Hearts die, nations collapse, the world keeps spinning.

Three tales about the same person, but exploring different aspects of his past, present, and future. Grasm learns about Grasm even as we do. I want to continue this journey!

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Now It's Dark

 

Now It's Dark by Lynda E. Rucker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first encountered Lynda E. Rucker's work in such magazines (remember those?) as The Third Alternative , Shadows and Tall Trees , and Nightmare Magazine . I've always admired her work, but I've read it intermittently, in sparse doses. The wonder about short story collections is that a reader can encounter stories by the same author, one after another. Sometimes this is disconcerting - quality is varied, voices change so dramatically as to be jarring, the same themes are done to death - but the best collections show just enough of the author's range of voices and themes, all at high quality, to introduce the reader not just to a new world, but to new worlds.

The worlds that Rucker takes us to in Now It's Dark are, well, dark. Not gory, not reliant on jump-scares, but more than just weird. At times, her work is creepy, emotionally gut-wrenching, or shocking, and sometimes (as in the last story of this volume) all three at once. Let's explore each story, in turn.

"The Dying Season" is composed (with a deft authorial hand) of a series of mis-steps by a fragile, emotionally-shaky woman who is on a supposed vacation in an off-season resort. This is not a fairytale but a tale of dark fairy that leaves one befuddled and even less sure of one's place in the world, like a psychogeographic black blot on the map, where being found is being lost. An unsettling tale.

"The Seance" was first published in Uncertainties, volume 1 and I can . . . certainly . . . see why. It's the vagaries peeking around corners, not the jump scare or obvious gore, where the real terror lies. Or does it? Just when you think you know something or, worse yet, someone, another angle reveals a hint of things you really don't want to see clearly. But you're the curious type, aren't you? Careful! You don't want to peek! But Rucker forces the issue and you are helpless and wide-eyed.

Rucker captures liminality in a bottle in "The Other Side". It's not a horrific tale, far from it, though the weird element might be considered horrific by some. Dark? Yes. But this was a somber contemplative piece drenched in sadness. Reflective and vaguely hopeful at the same time. Not only is liminality the subject of the story, but Rucker has captured the feel and mood of the liminal. Outstanding!

Egaeus Press's anthology A Soliloquy for Pan recently went through it's second printing and, once again, I missed my chance to get a copy. If Rucker's "The Secret Woods" is representative of the quality of the other stories in that volume, I have lost out on a treasure. It evoked in me both a deep emotional response and intellectual resonance. It's a gem in Rucker's crown.

I needed to sit with "Knots" for a while. It's a story about control and abuse, but there's a supernatural thread passing throughout that takes it firmly into the territory of the weird. It's heartbreaking, though, to think of those in abusive relationships that can't or won't get out. What are the knots that tie them to the situation? Mental illness? Emotional immaturity? Or something much more sinister than that? If you like to feel helpless, this is the story for you. And therein lies the horror: the horror of co-dependence.

Another story in the register of Aickman, "The Vestige" tracks a hapless traveler who has lost his passport, phone, and money. A traveling worst nightmare scenario. I've been in a similar situation when I last travelled to the UK and, on my way back, was detained in Heathrow Airport and had to give up my passport to authorities for reasons that were not clear to me then, but are now. I'll spare you the details of what is a very long story, but suffice it to say that I (and several others) were on Homeland Security's list for extra vetting and the first thing they did was confiscate our passports. Of course, that is a terrifying thing, but it's not the terror of the loss or fear of being a stranger in a strange land that affect the reader. These are sharp elements in the story, but it's the mystery of a past that might not have been and a present that also might not be that create the most emotional dissonance in this tale.

The next story was written for the anthology Gothic Lovecraft . There's just enough Lovecraft in "The Unknown Chambers" to call the story Lovecraftian. "Deep Ones" are mentioned once, as is Lovecraft himself. If you're familiar with the mythos, you'll figure out what's happening or going to happen early on. If not, then this might be a good introduction to Lovecraftiana not from the man himself. Disconcerting and stultifying, it's a good mythos tale, but not spectacular.

I suspected the final conceit of "So Much Wine" about three-quarters of the way through. The obtuse narrative could only lead to one conclusion, in the end. I was right. But I still love this story, not because of the way it concludes, but because the writing throughout devoured my attention, pulling it away from the fact that I already knew what was coming. The journey is more important than the destination.

"An Element of Blank" presents a coming-of-age story of three girls, now women, who experienced something - though it's never quite clear how fully - which may have been a demonic possession, those many years ago. Now, the possessor is back and the girls are wiser and braver than . . . what, exactly? Memory is a fickle mistress and cannot be trusted. And, yet, it must. But trauma, while it cannot erase the past, can redact it.

"The Seventh Wave" finishes this volume with, dare I say it? A splash. At turns, deeply sad, empathetic, and desperate, this story ends on a high note of pure terror. Possibly the most effective story in the volume, the voice of the narrator is strong, not in intensity, but in its depth. And the story will push and pull at your heartstrings until they're about to break until the inevitable, yet shocking end. I cannot recommend this story strongly enough.

And I cannot recommend this collection strongly enough. The physical object, as with all Swan River titles, is crisp and engaging. It might sound silly, but I love their size, the way they feel in the hand. The cover art for this volume is a painting by the amazing

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Le Livre des Fourmis: The Book of Ants

 

Le Livre des Fourmis: The Book of Ants by Robin D. Laws
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite games is the old Surrealist game Exquisite Cadaver. I'm not only a proponent, I'm a teacher of the game. I spread the gospel of Exquisite Cadaver far and wide, whenever I have the opportunity. My primary reason for loving the game is that it breaks my brain and causes me to look at live in a whole new way. It's the cognitive equivalent of cubism - seeing objects (in this case, either grammatical objects, if you are playing the "sentence" version, or illustrative objects, if you're playing the "three part drawing" version). Through what appears to be an aleotory excercise, but is really a channeling of the sublimated unconscious, one discovers new ways of looking at (or reading or writing or drawing) Things. I capitalize "Things" because I think of those creations as entities - self-sufficient, complete entities created by a group of people exercising the collective unconscious in a double-blind experiment. These Things emerge as we take our disjointed thoughts or pieces of thoughts (memes, perhaps?) and force them into a relational structure that causes disparate bits of our processed perceptions to be ordered in a template that we would normally use to create "meaning" - sentences and/or drawings. Through this, we form a new "reality". Or, at least, we form a new perception of reality. And if perception is reality, well, you get the picture.

In The Book of Ants (I will use the English title, because, to be honest, there is very, very little French in the book, even though most of the protagonists are French Surrealists), we are introduced to all the most famous of the surrealist cadre, and quite a few minor, even peripheral players of that artistic/poetic era. The book is told from the viewpoint of one Henri Salem, but don't go researching him, he's not real. At least not in this reality. In the reality of The Book of Ants, however, he is a young poet who develops relationships (and rivalries, and sometimes downright mutual loathing) with Breton, Dali, Bataille, Magrite, and many others you have likely never heard of, who keeps a diary set in two worlds: The world of the Great War and the interwar years of Paris, and the strange "place" underlying the conscious world, The Dreamlands.

As others have pointed out, this book serves as a sort of addendum to an RPG book, The Dreamhounds of Paris (which I shall review at some future point), written for the Trail of Cthulhu gaming system. It is referenced in the rulebook as a possible history from which players and game-masters might leverage for their own game play.

That said, there is nothing game-specific about the book at all. It reads quite well (outside of some annoying typos). The style is sparse, at times elegant, but not "purple," which is a bit surprising when the narrator and many of the characters are French poets and artists and even more surprising when once considers the overly-ornamented prose of H.P. Lovecraft, who brought The Dreamlands into the popular conscience. It helps to know the Cthulhu mythos and The Dreamlands, specifically, but those aren't absolutely necessary to understanding and enjoying the story, in fact, that knowledge isn't necessary at all. There's enough context and explication to allow the reader "in," though some references, such as the names of certain creatures that inhabit The Dreamland, might miss their full impact. In summary, no experience with the game or the subgenre is necessary, though knowing the subgenre is helpful.

I acknowledged the annoying typos. And I've edited and written enough books to know that eliminating all typos from a manuscript is a herculean task and, in many cases, nearly impossible. But the number of typos in the book can throw one out of the "dreamstate" of the book, which is a real shame. One might be luxuriating in the strangeness of it all, only to be suddenly jettisoned back to grammatical reality by obviously missing words (or obviously "extra" words). Can this be forgiven? Sure, but not without losing a star on my rating.

But when it's flowing, this story will capture you, slowly at first, intriguing you through the historical relationships of the surrealists one to another, then accelerating with the discovery that many of those sensitive enough (note: Breton was not) might enter the dreamlands, then, with the discovery that the surrealists could not only enter that place, they could manipulate it, create, and destroy, the pace becomes almost frantic. A new reality is discovered, then it is manipulated, subverted altogether, and disintegrated by those who have crossed over. There is a strong thread of the responsibility of those who colonize and the heinousness of the erasure of another's culture. Some serious ethical questions are asked and the answers to those questions affect not only The Dreamlands, or early-20th-Century Paris, but our own waking reality today. This isn't a book about strangeness and horrific caricatures of monstrosities - it really is about what it means to have influence, and about the consequences of one's actions, intended or not. This takes the work a step further than any other book I've read that was based on a roleplaying game. This isn't a "real play". It's much more than that. It will cause something that roleplaying games rarely do, and which the best gamemasters will engender in their players: introspection.

It's not just a book based on a game. It has, dare I say it? Meaning.


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Ossuary of Dreams: Twenty-Five Tales of German Horror and Weird Fiction

 

Ossuary of Dreams: Twenty-Five Tales of German Horror and Weird Fiction by Robert Grains
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

My kids are great. They're all adults now, so to call them "kids" feels a little disingenuous. But my kids are great (and my wife and grandkids, too, I must add).

"So why," you are likely asking yourself "are you leading off a review of a collection of weird horror fiction with 'My kids are great'."? Well, here's the deal. At around Christmas time, I do a bunch of massaging to my Amazon wishlist. Before you go ballistic, I try to order my books direct from publishers or, even better, directly from authors, so get off your high-horse for a second. I keep that Amazon wishlist to help my kids with Christmas shopping for dear old dad. One of the biggest issues with this is a recency-bias. If I see something new and shiny and it's getting near Christmas, I add it to my wishlist.

Such was the case with Ossuary of Dreams. I don't remember why I added it to my list last minute, but I did. Maybe it was the cool title or the even cooler font on the cover (no seriously, I live that font), or maybe I read a review about it that impressed me . . . I don't know. But, added it, I did.

So, this might be a sort of apologia to my daughter, who bought me the book. Kiddo, I really do appreciate the gift. It means a lot to me . . .

But I gotta give this one two stars.

The collection had its high points.

I found "A Walk in the Morning" to be a highly effective story.

There are echoes of Dhalgren in Grains hurtling-toward-the-collapse story "Our City at Night," but with a strong injection of occult forces. Here, I found that I prefer Grains at longer word counts. It gives his voice needed breathing space and makes the flourishes more emphatic and impactful.

I rather liked the unfolding-apocalypse (with a dream-time glimpse into the pyrrhic acknowledgment of respect to the lone survivor, imparted by the new God of this world) portrayed in "The Golden Age". I, for one, embrace the arrival of our robot overlords. This was an effective story, paced perfectly, with an air of reverent restraint that fit the tale to a tee. Well-played, not-quite-terminator.

"The Portraits of the Baron," the second-longest work in this collection, was, admittedly, very enjoyable. I loved the deep dives of esotericism here and the ending, while predictable, was satisfactory and held an ironic twist. This is the strongest work in the book.

"Metamorphosis" is an apocalyptic horror story somewhere between Clark Ashton Smith and China Mieville, wherein the narrator embraces the inevitability of change on the cosmic level, accepting fate with a philosophically stoic attitude that masks the shock of an undeserved fate of extreme horror.

So, there was something to like the collection. But, as Stepan Chapman used to say, there's also "something for everyone to hate".

I didn't hate most of the other stories. They ranged from "meh" to "I want to lem this book," but few of them went to the extreme of me wanting to do physical harm to the actual object. I reserve most of that hatred for one book in particular, which I'd like to see burned off the face of literary history. So, I didn't hate any of them that much. But there were some in there that I just kind of wanted to punch in the mouth.

I think that there are two fundamental problems, for me, with the work. First, the absolute fascination, nay, worship of overwrought and just plain faulty description drove me batty.

For example:

. . . a rumbling like from a squadron of unleashed poltergeists in the entablature.

This phrase has so many problems, I can't even begin to enumerate them. Well, maybe I can, but I really don't want to. Suffice it to say that I have more questions than answers about what is happening here.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.

Secondly, the overuse and downright abuse of adverbs had my inner editor clawing at my innards the whole way through. I honestly wanted to scream at times. Instead, I sighed heavily (I wince at having used an adverb here - is there no escape?!?) so I wouldn't wake up my wife. the "ly" ending now makes me twitch whenever I see it, like an abused puppy. It's going to take a while before I can see it without twitching.

Finally, I think that while the translation is mostly very good, you can also tell, in places, that it is a translation. I speak conversational German, and I know how convoluted German sentences can get. I don't envy anyone translating such a work of purple prose from German to English. The effort was good, but it is inevitable that there are some hiccups, and given the often awkward phraseology, they really show.

Had this been my first weird fiction rodeo, and had I read this, say, thirty years ago, I might have felt differently. But I can't, in good conscience, say anything beyond "it was ok," hence the two stars.

As always, your mileage may vary.

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Prisms of the Oneiroi

 

Prisms of the Oneiroi by Martin Locker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While I've read bits and bobs of Martin Locker's work before, this is my first full-length foray into his work and I feel like I've struck gold in the Pyrenees. I paid for it (including shipping from Andorra), but this is worth ten times what I spent! There's a wonderful variety to the stories in this collection, all girded by Locker's own voice, or, more properly, voices, as his characters are distinctly-identifiable from one another. Each tale is a different facet of the same gem.

Ligotti has nothing on Locker when it comes to existential dread on a cosmic scale. This was the sort of suffocating fear of the universe that Lovecraft strove for, but Locker has found. "The Dreaming Plateau" is horror of a different order of magnitude, made all the more impactful by the elision of the most purple prose. The poetic heart is intact, but without un-necessary frills, with terrifying clarity. And for some reason, my mind kept flashing images from the Tibetan scenes in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus throughout, which is not a bad thing. I was waiting for Tom Waits to burst through a door at any moment.

"Corfdrager" examines one of my favorite enigmatic pieces of art, Bruegel's "The Beekeepers and the Birdnester" (and the art used on one of my favorite albums from one of my favorite bands, Sunn's White 2) as a catalyst for the narrator's encounter with his family's past and his own inheritance via a seemingly academic investigation. One wonders, by the end, if the academics aren't the most horrific aspect of the story. If you went to graduate school, you know what I'm talking about here. The dive into apiary lore is more sinister and more irresistible than one might imagine.

While reading Prisms of the Oneiroi, I am using a Winterthur Poison Book Project bookmark (you can get one, like I did, for free here). The irony of reading "The Temple Consumes the Rose," which features a green book by Sar Peladan, is not lost on me. I might also be tempted to consume such a book, if I was to be rewarded the visions of Latoure, even if it cost me my life. Such is the price of true art. A moving occult tale.

"The Secrets of Saxon Stone" was a delight to read, and I am not being facetious. Daimons abound, the psychogeography of the region portrayed is reflective of the spirits that not only dwell there, but are interwoven into its very fabric. This is like Dunsany, but without the pedantics that sometimes overween his work. This is mythical and approachable, lending familiarity to the representation of the divine.

Locker displays his acumen for ethnography and mythic studies in "Sea Salt and Asphodel," a story of dreams, prophecy, and the cycle of life and death. The depth of immersion here just has to be experienced - I can't describe it. Suffice it to say that this tale is told in such a way that one feels at one with the others presented in the story. You don't read this story, you live in it. The reader feels a part of the tale, such is the attention to detail.

"In Search of the Wild Staircase" is an epistolary story in the vein of Harper's magazine travelogues from the late-19th- and early-20th-centuries, albeit with a folk horror twist. That twist is set on its head, though, as it is implied, at least, that The Church itself is the source of the frisson. The story ended a bit too hurried for me, but it's still a very solid work. I'll never look at the little country of Liechtenstein the same again.

Locker, you clever, clever man. "The Jasmine Tear" is a story worthy of a Twilight Zone episode, which is one of the highest compliments I can give to a short story. The koummya, the djinn, the deal with a demon, and the treasures of the Maghreb - this is worthy of Musiqa al-Ala; a masterstroke of storytelling that will stick in my mind until the Last Day (or fifty years, whichever comes first)!

I found "A Dialogue of Innocence with the Hidden Parish" deeply moving. First, it created a deep psychogeography of a particular house seeping with sadness, longing for company. I thought of my parent's home and the sorrow I associate with it, but more of that at a later time. I also thought of my own childhood and the deep impressions of place I felt as a young world traveller. Moving every two or three years (Dad was in the military) forces one to latch on to the feeling of a place rather quickly, so I might be a little hypersensitive that way. Combine that with the death of my parents a few years back, and maybe I was destined to fall in love with this story.

Ever contemplated choosing homelessness? I have (when it's warm out). In fact, I was very strongly tempted at my last job to just give a try at homelessness, but fate, thankfully, intervened. In "What the Vagabond Sees or The Parish Coda," an entire society and cosmology is outlined for English Vagabonds, whose motto is "No Parish But Albion". If you know, you know. I immediately connected with this tale, due in part to a trip I took in 2019 that allowed a fair bit of rambling around the Cotswolds. I recalled the many carefree hikes that friends and I took in the English countryside, from Brighton and Eastbourne to the Midlands to the Cotswolds, when I lived in the UK as a teenager. As I understand it, after The Great War, many veterans, disillusioned from the horrors they saw during the war, became homeless wanderers in the 1920s. I think that the song "The Tin Man" by Grasscut is inspired by that phenomenon or, if it's not, I'm going to interpret it that way anyway. I've often dreamt of what it would be, in my dotage, to hike around England until I just drop dead. I know I'm going to sound borderline insane, but it's a very tempting prospect, in all seriousness. This story just unlocks that morbid longing in my heart all over again. Maybe. Someday. Maybe. But only if I'm alone. And it's warm. But I can't imagine a better way to go.


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Rogue's Gallery: Gameholecon 2024

 

9 years now, I've attended Gameholecon in Madison, WI. It helps that I used to live in Madison and am about 40 minutes away now. Also helps that my son lets me crash on his apartment floor. Not the most comfortable arrangement, but hey, it's free, and best of all I get to see my son every day, if even for a short time before I crash out. Love that guy.

This year Gameholecon was a little earlier than in past years. If I remember correctly, last year it was on Halloween weekend (or maybe that was the year previous - I forget). So it was just a touch warmer, which suits me fine. I have memories of earlier Gameholecons, when I lived in Madison, walking home in the bitter cold at stupid o'clock (yes, I was within walking distance). So, yay for global warming, I guess . . . 

Below is my "Rogues Gallery" AKA, the masks I wore for the various games. My schedule was like this:

Started off playing Dark Ages Cthulhu, which was just like modern Call of Cthulhu, but with different skills. The rules were essentially the same. It was a good scenario in which my character ended up becoming one with Shub Niggurath, which is de rigeur for such scenarios, no? There was supposed to be a chase scene, but the Keeper generously skipped that or we would have been there all day. 

Next up was an Empire of the Petal Throne game run by my friend Victor Raymond. I always want to squeeze in an EPT game if I can get in. This one played out as a very pulpy adventure, like something from a 1930s radio drama. It was kitsch, but in all the good ways. And, of course, I'm always happy to immerse myself in Tekumel - it's such a great setting. If you haven't played and get the chance to, jump in, but don't be overwhelmed, as Tekumel is thoroughly-recognized. I can guarantee, though, that if you're playing at Victor's table, you will get everything you need. He is very keen on, and very good at, introducing new players to the world.

Last game Thursday was "Catastrophe Island" for Dungeon Crawl Classics, run by another friend of mine, Doug Kovacs. I've been playing with Doug for a long time now, so I knew what to expect: utter insanity. And so it was. I played a punk kid who ended up as a unicorn-riding skeleton. That's . . . never happened to me before . . . that I want to talk about . . . ever.

Friday started with Achtung! Cthulhu! in which I played a special forces type infiltrating behind enemy lines to discover what some Nazis were doing and what they were digging up (whether intentionally or ignorantly). Yes, there was Nazi-punching. Lots of Nazi-punching. It felt cathartic. 

Next was a Classic Traveller adventure: "Death Station". It's a classic adventure, but I'll be honest, I've never played in it or read it before. Reminded me mostly of Pandorum, for those who know that movie. The best parts came at the end, actually, when we were able to carefully manipulate a no-win situation into something we could not only live with , but which was a satisfying resolution. Things looked very grim, but in-character roleplaying, which involved not a little threat of blackmail, won the day. 

And from there, I played a Boy Scout. Yes, a Boy Scout in a Call of Cthulhu adventure. This was a "black letter" adventure put on by the crew at You Too Can Cthulhu (bless their souls). I learned that a lot of ttrpg nerds were also Boy Scouts in their youth, including yours truly. I have fond memories of playing D&D by flashlight in a tent on a few campouts. This Boy Scout service activity, however, only created horrific memories for all involved. Given the timeline of the adventure, though all the Boy Scouts survived, it's likely they all got killed later storming Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. That's what we thought, anyway. I guess it's good when you speculate together on what happened to the characters later on in life. Wait, did I say "good"? I think I meant "horrible".

At every con, I try to play at least one game I've never played before. This time, it was Warhammer 40K RPG, which I was excited about. I've got to say, though, that it just fell flat for me. The system did not live up to the hype, as far as I am concerned. It was a fine adventure, but the emphasis on tactics just felt a little too video-gamey to me. I suppose the character sheet was cool. Your mileage may vary.

Saturday morning I was up early for a game of Troika!, which is, let's face it, very Saturday-morning-cartoonish. In other words, it was the perfect way to start the day! The scenario was rather simple, but because the Troika! system is also fairly simple, things flowed quickly and we had a good, goofy time. I'm a big fan of the system. It's stripped down the essentials, and the initiative system adds an element of chaos to everything that is a welcome change from going down the numbers list to see who goes next. 

That afternoon, I played Battletech. Now, I was a fairly early adapter to that game, first playing back in 1986. I played a lot (along with the Mechwarrior RPG) for a couple of years, then moved back to the States from England, and just kind of fell off the bandwagon. The last few years, I've enjoyed a renaissance of sorts. No, I'm not crazy about the game, but since I always try to get into at least one miniatures game per con, I saw the slot and took it. This one was a tournament-style wherein once you lose, you are then brought back on to the board in a bigger mech. Then, if that one gets toasted, you move on to a yet larger mech. It was a lot of fun. I put a photo below of my mech about to be absolutely destroyed by the opposing (and much larger) mech's axe. That was the last thing that happened in my participation in the free-for-all. Good fun, getting your head split open (and your pilot crushed to pulp) by another mech. It was pretty epic. 

In between sessions, I went to the dealer room. I was on a mission: I had played Never Going Home at a previous con and absolutely fell in love with it. So, I headed more or less straight to the Wet Ink Games table and barfed up a wad of money for these beauties:

Can't wait to dig in more on those! Given the way I'm trying to structure my time next year (more on that in a later post), I should be able to cook up some craziness and maybe even run a game at a con?

I also stopped in to see Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller. As always, I had a very pleasant conversation with him about games and life in general. I've stated before that it was a childhood dream come true to play at his table a couple of times and other conventions, and now he recognizes my face and knows my name. That might not seem like much to you, but to the 10-year-old that lives deep within my heart, that creates a great deal of excitement and gratitude within. I'm not afraid to say that he's a hero of mine (though he would likely try to brush that off as too-kind).

In any case, I stopped and bought some Traveller dice, something I've needed since childhood, but didn't know I needed. He also proffered a great deal of schwag, for which I'm grateful, including a comic about the Beowulf class of starships and a Beowulf all-access badge. Then, a week or so after the con, I received an envelope from Marc with a(nother) nobility card, among other goodies. To say that Marc's generosity is off the charts is an understatement.

The phrase "saving the best for last" has been so over-used as to become trite. But in the case of Gameholecon 2024, it really was saving up the best for last!

I was lucky enough this year to get into two games run by the You Too Can Cthulhu crew. The last game of the con for me was "Black Sun Rising". If this is ever published, I will destroy anything in my path preventing me from being first in line for this one. Our party was composed of Interpol agents. I played Vitali Kovalev, a Russian ex-pat whose specialty was busting organ trafficking rings. This proved critical in getting clues (i.e., calling in favors) to figure out how the illegal sale of Nazi artifacts co-terminated with a criminal organ harvesting operation. This was a complex, twisting trail of clues that culminated at a pagan folk music festival. You can guess what baddy was involved (hint, I've mentioned her already in this post). I don't want to give anything away, since you might very well play in this scenario at a later date, but this was absolutely THE BEST rpg experience I've had (as a player) at a con so far. I don't have enough superlatives. The scenario was a real test of the player's intelligence and problem-solving skills. The group of players (several of whom I've gamed with before) was just an amazing group of gamers, the kind of table one would die for to be able to play with on a more regular basis. The keeper was (as is always the case) on the top of his game and slipped into character easily. There was more dialogue and ROLEplaying than I've ever participated in for one game. It was absolutely PERFECT! Special thanks to the YTCC crew, who always do a great job, but absolutely knocked this one out of the park. And, yes, many Nazis were punched and shot and killed in the production of this gaming session. And it makes me smile, unlike my character, who, as you can see here is all business.

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Lost Estates

 

Lost Estates by Mark Valentine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not shy about my opinion of Mark Valentine as one of the best writers of strange tales penning today. Or maybe he's "quilling," yes, that seems more like his protagonists, most of them people who you can't help but like, from the book collector of "Worse Things Than Serpents" to the four quirky mystics of "The Readers of the Sands" to the curious amateur historian of "The Fifth Moon," his protagonists are just so darned likeable. I think this intensifies their rather strange encounters (some of them downright horrific). I'd like to think that they reflect aspects of the author's personality, but you know where that gets us when assessing fiction. And, having never met him, I can't say if these are projections of his inner life or not, but if not, he does have a convincing way or portraying people, like myself, whose curiosity can get them in a bit of trouble, innocent as they may be. And perhaps that's why their various discoveries and predicaments carry such a sense of immediacy. I could easily see myself, or people I know, blissfully blundering into situations with the beyond that they can barely comprehend, let alone deal with in any kind of meaningful way. These are not stories of highly-competent detectives who flippantly "figure it all out". If you want that, I'd point you to Valentine and Howard's excellent The Collected Connoisseur or his Herald of the Hidden . No, these are not the same as the highly-competent Connoisseur or Ralph Tyler, these are rather ordinary people with strange interests thrust into extraordinary circumstances. And I am all for it. My notes for each story (with some post-note-taking embellishment as always) are here presented:

"A Chess Game at Michaelmas" is classic Mark Valentine, but with an air of folk magic, like sage hanging heavy in the air, a consecration to a sort of tale that Valentine has avoided, or at least minimized, in the past. It's a new "look," but with the same rigor and steady hand that Valentine practices so well. The horrific element is quick, a flash in the pan, but it turns the tale completely, capturing the reader.

Valentine is a connoisseur (note the lack of capital leading letter - see above) of rare and strange books, and "Worse Things Than Serpents" has this avocation on clear display. The wandering narrator enters a bookstore called "Brazen Serpent Books" wherein he finds a rare book, not a grimoire or antique tome, but a book that piques his interest. His presence at the bookshop, in turn, piques the interest of something else. Something he doesn't want to take an interest in him. No one would . . .

How to place my finger on "Fortunes Told: Fresh Samphire"? I can't do it. I'm reminded of a recent substack post by Matt Cardin about the need for mystery in writing. I told him he's gonna love this Robert Aickman guy I heard about. This story is much the same. A mystery. But not a mystery to be solved, a mystery to be savored. Let the prose poetry wash over you and wander for awhile. But don't get lost along the way.

As I read "The House of Flame," I kept thinking "this sounds like it was almost lifted directly from Machen's Hill of Dreams," only to find that the story was written for a volume in homage to Arthur Machen. I have to admire that it even matched Machen stylistically; no easy feat. But then I ask, for the first time ever, "did Valentine do anything new here"? Maybe not. But to be blunt, I don't care. This is still a worthy and well-crafted tale, and maybe it will lead others down the Machen road.

"The Seventh Card," like its protagonist, ambles along at a slow pace, languidly moving, then melding with a soft sense of the strange, not sudden or harsh, but gently enveloping him (and us) into a softly spoken, but inevitably odd new reality.

I'm not fond of the title "And Maybe the Parakeet Was Correct," but I am quite fond of the story. A side-passage into sports journalism leads to a side-passage into a sport that has no heroes, only villains. The stakes here might be much higher than your standard football match and there is no willing audience and no cheering. On the contrary, no one wants to be a part of this match, though some must. If you've ever walked down the wrong alley in the wrong neighborhood - and I have done this many times in my travels - you'll relate to the awkwardness and dull sense of background dread in this story.

"Laughter Ever After" strikes a hopeful tone for a book collector's story. And it's set in Biggleswade, not far from where I lived in England. It's on the dull side, but that's kind of the whole point of the story.

"The Readers of the Sands" is a strange, yet subtle tale, the sort of story that balances in a razor, but never falls one way or another. It is a quiet tale of four individuals, each with an affinity for sand, each with their own insights and talents, all of them distantly cognizant of something Other in the shifting patterns, something sentient and, perhaps, inimical to them, individually and collectively. I think this story, surprisingly, has stuck in my head the most out of all of the stories in this volume. It was one of the least horrific of the stories, or perhaps one of the more "triumphant" stories, but this contrasts rather sharply with the strange ouvre of the tale, a sort of, well, shifting, slithering something that underlies . . . well, everything. Maybe it's the ontological questions that arise long after the story is read that have captured my lingering attention. I shall have to go read it again and again, as there's something expansive beyond just the events portrayed here. Something . . . I don't know . . . just . . . more.

What starts as a dry, treatise on pub signs and their origins slips from the academic to the folksy to the downright hallucinatory. This is a path that Valentine sometimes embarks on, but doesn't always finish the journey. Here, I am glad to say, we are plunged into phantasmagoric visions that might drive the bookish seeker after fact and data completely over the edge of madness. I was happy to dive off that cliff and swim in strange waters.

I suppose every short fiction collection has one - that previously-unpublished piece with an amazing title and mysterious premise that just doesn't quite connect with the reader. "Lost Estates" was that for me. A "minor piece" as the literati say. It just didn't jive with the rest of the collection, which is strange, given the story is about the creation of music, at it's heart, maybe even ironic, if unintended.

The next tale, "The End of Alpha Street," has the signature marks of Valentines work that I so love: a warmth of character, a hint of witty humor, a fascination with the outre and the neglected sides of life, and a mystery left mysterious. The story is eerie and yet so human; the juxtaposition pulling the reader in, even while alarms are going off in your head. But is there really need to be alarmed? Maybe.

Take "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and add ten layers of sinister intent. James was just scratching the surface, but Valentine goes all in, even if his protagonist is incredulous. If you think King John wasn't evil, your naivete won't save you. This is folk horror taken to the next level by Valentine's deft hand. A nod to James, but a story that is completely Valentine; well, outside of a sprinkling of The Bard's work. Five stars for "The Fifth Moon"!

I can't end without mentioning the absolutely beautiful presentation here. The dust jacket is, obviously, striking, but strip that thing off for a minute and just admire the even-more-striking hardcover. The aesthetic of this book is complex in its simplicity. Swan River keeps producing elegant hardcovers in limited editions that one must keep one's eye on, lest they sell out and you are left with a gaping hole on your bookshelf that could have been filled with a true gem. I've regretted missing more than one Swan River title, and I plan on snatching them up more often. If you're on the fence, splurge!

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Greener Pastures

 

Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The blurbs that introduce this collection are a who's-who of writers whose work I greatly appreciate: Gemma Files, Steve Rasnic Tem, Brian Evenson, Nathan Ballingrud, and S.P. Miskowski, among others. So, I had high expectations going into this lauded collection.

Unfortunately, things started slowly.

"Beside Me Singing in the Wilderness" takes the old tropes of vampirism and twists it up a bit. It's good, smoothly written, but not extraordinary to me. Your mileage may vary.

"Onanon" was more the sort of thing I expected from all the blurbs and praise I've read. Cosmic horror of the natural world told in a sparse, unforgiving voice.

And from here on out, the stories were incredibly strong, outside of one dip, which I'll mention below.

The title story is strong. Very strong. Like "could have been an episode of Rod Serling's original Twilight Zone" strong. It's the power of the unspoken and the unseen between the words that is so unsettling. The words only mark the boundaries. It's the gaps in-between where the horror dwells. I have a few friends who are truckers that I'm going to recommend this story to. Or maybe I shouldn't . . .

"A Discreet Music" is subtle and strange, but mostly not horrific. And this is good. I actually like the calm weirdness of this transformation, of the shedding of an old life for the new. It's not without its painful moments. On the contrary, there is deep pain in Hiram, the protagonist. And there are jarring revelations about the self, as well. But the metamorphosis is profound and moving.

"The Devil Under the Maison Blue" is such a gently-delivered story that one embraces the horror as, well, just fine. A horror story needn't be stark or harsh or jarring in any way to elicit a powerful response. This is a clear case in point. Sometimes it's the devil you don't know that makes the biggest impression.

I, too, am a sucker for lost footage stories. "October Film Haunt: Under the House" is a melange of the weird and the eerie, full of things that ought not to be, but are, and empty of things that should be, but are not. The lines between fact and fiction and between observer and observed are smeared beyond recognition, resulting in a kaleidoscope of horror that will haunt the reader for a very, long time. And if you're wondering what the cover art is all about: this is it!

"Deducted From Your Share in Paradise" defies expectations in every way. It's a story of maintaining innocence while in a maelstrom of selfish choices, about endings and new beginnings, and possibly about heaven and hell. But it's not so cut and dried as these pairings. One must worm their way between these things and question the very meaning of their outmost bounds. Or maybe, boundaries need to be ignored.

"The Inconsolable" presses deep on the depression button, then asks "what is faith?" and "what is comfort?" It's a poignant tale about breakups and new beginnings, along with the caveats inherent in leaving a piece of one's old life, and a piece of one's own soul, behind.

"Dancers," while weird, was just too soft-spoken for my tastes. It might even be an (gasp) "ineffective" story, trying too hard to be too many things at once. This was the one gap in this collection. I guess every collection has to have one.

"A Thousand Hundred Years" pushes even further through the boundaries of Mark Fisher's "Eerie" and "Weird", namely "that which should be there, but is missing" and "that which is there, but should not be," to great emotional effect. The story is a strange admixture of tears and fears, of melancholy and hope, a tale of being pulled in multiple directions, some good, some bad, all at once. It is life and loss in all its complexity, and reveals the true, confusing horrors of the world. Like many of the stories in this collection, this injects a great deal of emotion, without becoming sickly sweet or cynical, into a tale that squeezes the breath out of you.

Oof (again). "Bookends" is a poetic, sublime, beautiful gut punch. Grief is at the heart of it all, grief and loss, both of which I've experienced in bucketloads over the course of the last few years. Do not read this if you are dealing with an open emotional wound, specifically the death of a close loved one. This story will absolutely wreck you. Then again, it might just open some doors. Approach with caution.

The blurbs are deserved. Minus one miss, this collection hits on all cylinders. I will be reading more of Wehunt's work, for sure. But that's for the future, after I've recovered from this one and the deep emotional grooves it cut in me start to smooth out. For now, I am left scarred, but better for it. Kind of like . . . life.

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