Des Lewis' Brainwright and My Writing

 Here, a very brief post, a mere link, really, to Des Lewis' Forrest Aguirre and the Brainwright for my old age. As some of you know, Des is a master of reviewing works of fiction in such a way as to re-present the work to new audiences by offering a detailed analysis that is less explanatory and more exploratory, not ingesting and regurgitating the material, but painting a picture of a painting with other eyes. His reviews are a kaleidoscope, zooming in and out, lensing, coloring, sometimes distorting to catch images out of the corner of the intellectual eye that one would otherwise miss. As I said, they re-present the work in fully self-sufficient strokes.

Now Des has examined his reviews through the lens of what I will call a Deep-Observational Engine, which takes the whole of his output (which has a vast and riddling complexity) and twists the kaleidoscope on the reviews themselves. For my own work, this is fascinating to me. I have no argument with the conclusions, but note that many of the threads presented here were not anything intentional on my part. Some were, of course, but some are just organic threads that emerge through my writing process from somewhere deep inside. When I read the review, it gives me reason to reflect not only on my work, but on myself. I think back to "where I was" in life at the time I wrote each of those stories, and I can see windows back into my own experience (the experience of living, not writing) two steps removed from my own biased analysis of myself. It's a refreshing view and lends perspective that I otherwise wouldn't have.

As always, Des: fantastic. You are a modern Wizard.

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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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Disruptions

 

Disruptions by Steven Millhauser
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been a champion of Millhauser's work for a long time now, ever since I was introduced to his work through one of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's fabulous Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. I was rather excited when I heard that Millhauser had released another collection of shorts that I had somehow missed - I blame post-covid . . . well, everything.

I've always admired Millhauser's clean aesthetic and straightforward storytelling, always with a hint of something more lurking behind the scenes. After reading many more authors since my earlier Millhauserian days, I now recognize, in this collection, echoes of some of my favorite authors: Calvino, Borges, and Kafka, for instance. But I sometimes wondered as I read if these echoes were too loud, that Millhauser was dipping into these classic literary heroes of mine and regurgitating what he found there. Oh, I don't think it's anything intentional, and it probably says more about my reading journey than about his writing journey, but I couldn't help but want to compare the stories in this collection to these three authors. I showed great restraint in not doing so for almost every single story. There were times where I just couldn't help myself. The resemblance was too strong. Sadly, this made me, well, sad. My love affair with Millhauser may be coming to an end.

"One Summer Night" reminded me of the elements I love in Millhauser's fiction: the crystal clear, yet evocative prose, a sense that people are much more or less than they seem, and a liminal state of mind where a certain sinister or magical something is just around the corner, in the shadows, out of reach and that, depending on which side of the razor's edge you fall off of, you might find heaven or hell.

No, "After the Beheading" is not some kind of literary click bait. It is one of Millhauser's most morbid tales to date. But the shock doesn't come from the act of the beheading itself. It comes in the slow cessation of outrage and spectacle. The true horror here - and it is truly horrific - arises quietly, long after the execution. It is the slow swelling and expansion of indifferent acceptance, another common theme in his work.

Having taken a couple of guided tours in Europe last month, Millhauser's "Guided Tour," about a highly accurate historical tour of the town of Hamelin hit close to home. To quote from this macabre tale, "Stories have teeth . . .", and this one will take a chunk out of you. Fabulous, frightening stuff. Here Millhauser leaps from the merely strange into the truly horrific.

"Late" is what you'd expect from a story that appeared in Harpers magzine: Highly neurotic entitled city dweller obsesses about the arrival of his date to the point of insanity. Not my favorite Millhauser piece. Clever, but more than a little tedious.

Millhauser's best stories are often about community and it's complications. In "The Little People," a series of vignettes and encyclopedic entries about Greenhaven, a city within "our city" whose inhabitants are an average two inches tall, he addresses the joys and challenges, the loves and the prejudicial hates that arise between "our" culture and those of Greenhaven's residents. Though the community trope feels a little stretched at times, it's a fascinating reflection on human nature within a society.

In "Theater of Shadows," we continue with the theme of community, but this time, a community that embraces darkness and find themselves, purely by their desires and choices, in a liminal state somewhere between shadow and light. We refer to this state (though Millhauser does not) as a "Twilight Zone," and for good reason. This story is reflective (pardon the pun) of the best of Rod Serling's masterpieces. There was a sliver of a hint of folk horror in this story, as well, and it stuck in my brain long after I finished reading; always the sign of a solid story.

"The Fight" reminds us that coming of age stories can be fraught with fear and testosterone, when the fight or flight response is being honed in at such a visceral level that we don't even realize what is happening and the line between fact and fantasy blurs both for our relationships with others and for our image of our selves. Moving into proto-adulthood is no easy transition.

"A Haunted House Story" channels Robert Aickman in all the right ways. haunters and the haunted are indistinguishable, and a view of utter happiness brings on a dark gloom of despair. This story will affect you, deeply, and you will not even understand quite why. But it burrows into you. And it stays. It's terrifying by not being terrifying at all . . . until it's over.

One thing Millhauser does well is magic realism. "The Summer of Ladders" is a great example of this. The population of a town become obsessed with climbing ladders, with results that affect all the inhabitants, directly or indirectly. And an apotheosis might have happened. Maybe, just maybe. Or a disappearing act? As with most magic realism, it's so hard to tell. And in that ambiguity lies the magic. But, as I outlined in the beginning, a magic of mimesis.

"The Circle of Punishment" begs comparison to the short fiction of Borges, Kafka, and Calvino. But Millhauser here turns "kafkaism" inside out while pushing "kafkaism" even deeper into the soul in such a way that the reader is unsure whether to be relieved or even more disturbed. I've coming away thinking far too much about the interiority of social prisons, punishment we impose on ourselves, deserved or not. Again, though, I felt like this story was not "his own". Ridiculous, I know, but it was a distraction from the fiction itself, like focusing on the girders of a roller coaster rather than enjoying the ride.

The communal theme continues (yet again) with "Green" where changing fashions in landscaping (or the destruction thereof) swing wildly, with neighbors making bizarre changes to "keep up with the Jones's" in a strange display of conspicuous consumption. If you love to look good to everyone around you by following the latest trends, regardless of their utility or even sanity, well, this story is for you. And if you're an HOA board member, you're going to absolutely love this one. I was not very impressed, as the subtlety was completely worn off by the fine this tale made it to the printer.

Phone-tree hell is portrayed quite vividly in "Thank You For Your Patience". The person listening to the annoying repeated messages while waiting to speak to a human being shows her patience, even gives a practical sermon on her experiences with patience, revealing secrets to an uncaring machine. It's a sick twist on the tale of the suburban housewife, sick because it reveals just how pathetic some peoples' lives are.

The residents of a small town all fall asleep for three days in "A Tired Town". The narrator struggles to stay awake and, in so doing, experiences a silent moment on the cusp of something indescribable, but then succumbs to slumber. He awakens to the "cleanup" afterword with a sense that he somehow missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but he's not sure what it was. Serves as a reflection on busy-ness and calm. This one was a little too "on the nose" in its criticism of modern American society.

"Kafka in High School, 1959" gives us snippets of Kafka (yes, that Kafka) as an awkward nerd going through the clumsy growing pains of a teenager. It's all too normal of an alternate history, bland, with sideways glimpses of how this teenager could turn into the author we know. One can see how the awkwardness could be magnified into the bleak work we already know. And in the end, things do go strangely.

Millhauser embraces outright surrealism in his story "A Common Predicament," which is anything but common. The narrator's strange relationship with a woman whom he loves (and who loves him), though never faces him. Ever. The speculations as to why she exhibits this behavior haunt him, but he accommodates this strange quirk for the sake of their love. Definitely a story worthy of the label "disruption".

A disruption of a far more disturbing kind takes place in "The Change," a modern re-telling of the myth of Daphne, the nymph who turns into a tree to avoid the unwanted sexual advances of Apollo. But this is no myth, it's a frankly horrifying story of what it means to be a young woman in a world of hyper-charged sexuality and the rule of testosterone that mirrors the rule of the jungle. This needs a trigger warning! It's no wonder that this, unlike most of the stories here, was original to this collection - no one in their right legal mind would want to publish it in their respected literary magazine. Too chancy!

Millhauser's experimental piece, "He Takes, She Takes" jockeys back and forth using the simple phrase: "He takes the (insert thing here, she takes the (insert other thing here)". It is tediously repetitive, but between this iterative bouncing back-and-forth, a story actually seems to emerge, though it is up to the reader whether this is a story of two individuals or the story of all couples.

And we end the collection with, guess what? Yes! Another story about a strange community, "The Column Dwellers in our Town". I rather liked this slightly-surreal take on a town where some inhabitants choose to live a solitary life atop a high rock or cement column (not to exceed 140', per code). It does cause one to think hard about asceticism and social pressure in new ways. Though the subject matter was bizarre, the reflections on people's reactions to the town's setup was more subtle and believable than the other community stories in this volume. I quite liked this strange "story".

But did I like the whole collection? Sure. I guess. But not nearly as much as Millhauser's earlier work. Maybe it's him, maybe it's me, but I was longing for something with the power to immerse me in one of his little worlds, something like Enchanted Night (which I strongly recommend). Sadly, my intense love affair with Millhauser's writing may have run its course. Am I tired of it? Not entirely. But, like the inhabitants of "A Tired Town," I feel a dolor coming on. Maybe it's time to rest on Millhauser for a while?

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The Jade Cabinet

The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Rikki. I've helped publish her work a couple of times and have an irregular correspondence with her. Just sent her a letter (handwritten, of course) a few weeks ago, in fact.

Knowing Rikki and reading The Jade Cabinet again after having been away from it for so many years, I am struck, most of all, by the sheer restraint she shows in presenting this devastating, yet beautiful novel. It's a clear case of the power of editing and craftsmanship at work. Her pen is under strict control here, concentrating the power of whimsey and, indeed, some degree of madness into a self-restrained, almost ethereal (pardon the pun - one of the main characters is named "Etheria") critical examination of male dominance, the Victorian social paradigm, and the favoritism of technic over magic.

This is a character-driven novel, first and foremost. What I love about Rikki's work here is that none of the characters are presented as "either/or". Radulph Tubbs, a notably brutal man with few redeeming qualities, almost none, in fact, becomes, in his older years, a bit sympathetic. But not too sympathetic. More just plain pathetic. But the narrator (who, in a surprising twist, ultimately . . . well, I don't want to give away the surprise) feels a pity that borders on admiration for Tubbs' inner world, even though his actions in the physical world are violently misogynistic and crassly materialistic. Baconfield, the architect, who is hired by Tubbs, is a staunch industrialist, bent on bringing sterile order to everything, but later, through a series of misfortunes, becomes a mad mystic. Angus Sphery, father to both Memory (the narrator) and her sister Etheria, is a loving, whimsical father and a friend of Charles Dodgson (yes, that Charles Dodgson) who also abandoned his first daughter and ultimately ended up in Bedlam asylum. Sphery's wife, Margaret, likewise, lost her sanity, but for altogether different reasons.

Yes, it's that sort of novel. Full of frivolity, madness, and (mostly) tragedy.

And at the center of it all is Etheria, the mute daughter of Angus Sphery, who is essentially sold off to Radulph Tubbs for the price of The Jade Cabinet, a Wunderkammer, of sorts, filled exclusively with figurines carved from jade. One of these figures, which I will not reveal here, becomes the pivotal tool (I use that word reluctantly, but it works on several levels), the wrench in the works, as they say, that leads to the vanishment of the lovely, innocent Etheria and the subsequent emergence of the one true monster of the novel, the Hungerkünstler. No, not that Hungerkünstler, but one of the same mien.

Unlike many character-driven novels, however, The Jade Cabinet is fully-engaging throughout, with something for everyone (or "something for everyone to hate" as my friend Stepan Chapman used to say). The magic realism borders, at times, on that ill-defined subgenre known as "The Weird". The writing itself has a strong focus on not only the language itself, but the role of language as it affects the inner worlds of each character. Ultimately, I suppose, the work is about language and memory, though it never beats the reader over the head with a philosophical stick. It is subtle. And this is really the greatest compliment I can give to it: it breathes softly, with occasional rushes of wind, but it's underpinnings are mere whispers that overwhelm, if one is paying attention. It demands such attention, but not in a bombastic way; rather, it engages like a soft mountain breeze through the trees, simultaneously caressing the ears and overwhelming them. It is an elemental force: the force of the air.

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To Those Gods Beyond

 

To Those Gods Beyond by Giorgio Manganelli
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have yet to read an Atlas Press title that hasn't surprised me and delighted me. Giorgio Manganelli's To Those Gods Beyond is no exception. Again, Atlas captures and presents the work of a heretofore-unknown-to-me master of literary expression with near perfection. I'll explain the "near" at the end. Even with that forthcoming caveat, this is an outstanding work that should be read more widely. I absolutely see why Italo Calvino praised Manganelli's work and why Atlas published this book. The first 50-ish pages alone are worth the price of entry. Far more, if you ask me. The book is divided into seven sections, which I've outlined below. Calvino remarked on the coherence of the work, which is seemingly all over the place. I agree, but I can't quite put my finger on exactly how it coheres. This bears more examination and thought.

Manganelli's essay "Literature as Deception" flatters the writer's vanity, crowning him buffoon, but in the sense of The Fool in the tarot. The foolishness is freedom and the buffoonery wisdom. The writer is, in essence, the trickster god of words and semantics. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. At least I flatter myself thusly. Call me a vain fool.

"A King" may be an existentialist shudder from the whispering of death or it may be a eulogy to solipsism itself. But why not both? In any case it is as bold and majestic as the title.

"Simulations" takes the narrator from kingship to poverty to being a renegade and, finally, to nothing but a "child's hallucination". Manganelli, like Beckett in his famous trilogy, breaks down the character to the point of less than nothing, a mere figment of imagination. The last paragraph is a masterful paradigm shift from the observer to the observed; an existentialist epiphany.

"A Few Hypotheses Concerning My Previous Reincarnations" is exactly what it purports to be, which is a baffling thing for any reader. Suffice it to say that the "S" word (-uicide) figures prominently in the narrative as the author tries to piece together his past life. It's a whimsical and tragic examination of identity and the twisted roads one can go down when reflecting on the self.

"Ignominy" sees the (yet another) dead protagonist slowly reason themself into the state defined by the title. The self-awareness of The Dead leads them to disappear in the ever-diminishing (or, rather, spreading thin to near-infinity) of the self. Ignoring, it seems, is both ubiquitous and inevitable for those without a body and, hence without a firm place in space and time. All dissolves into near-nothing.

In hindsight, it's plain to see that the title of the book: To Those Gods Beyond derives, in tone and principal, at least, from the story "An Impossible Love". Here, Hamlet (deceased) finds means to communicate with the Princess of The Princess of Cleve (also deceased) by means of a verbal catapult that launches missives across realities. But what is between and behind those realities? The answer is rather distressing.

The lengthy and exhaustive essay "Disquisition on the Difficulty of Communicating With the Dead" is precisely what the title promises. Where does one begin searching to find the dead, seeing that we have no way to measure those who have no body? Where are they hiding? And what language would we or should we use when communicating with them, once found? More importantly, do they even care? Or are they just stupid?

Now, on to my only complaint. I understand why Alastair Brotchie's afterword was, well, after the rest of the book. Here Brotchie tries to provide a framework for the volume as a whole, attributing all the references to death to an ongoing metaphor about writers and literary work. The evidence feels very thin, with Brotchie admitting as much, and I was absolutely unconvinced. Besides, the afterword saps the work of its mystery - the speculation, often with a darkly humorous twist, about what the state of the dead actually is. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't at the beginning, as the tenuous, yet overwrought analysis of Manganelli's work wouldn't have spoiled the joy of To Those Gods Beyond so much as polluted it utterly. I'd rather it just not have been a part of this volume.

So, excising the weak afterword, this is a strong collection of . . . well, it's not exactly easy to find an appropriate genre category for this work. It's its own thing. Unique. A bit of an enigma. And I love it for that.

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Rumbullion

 

Rumbullion by Molly Tanzer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I keep telling myself I don't like epistolary novels, which seems a bit odd, as I do truly love to handwrite letters to a select few friends, so it's obviously not the format itself. Perhaps it's that many novels of letters completely miss the "show, don't tell" bandwagon. So, I'm always a little leery when it comes to these kinds of novels.

My misgivings, in this case, were misplaced. I loved Rumbullion.

It started out slowly. Another Goodreads reviewer noted that it took them two months to read the slim volume, and I can see why. Though it's short, it's not a quick read, at least not at first. This probably has to do with the stodgy views of the narrator and his need to explain in great detail with several asides - much as you would expect from a novella that is, at its heart, poking fun at the societal mores, the "morals," and even the writing style of 18th-century England. Once one cottons on to what is being said (without being said), the story rolls out like a well-maintained red carpet, and off you go down the promenade.

I had caught whiffs of Tristram Shandy right from the beginning (a book that I need to re-read and review, truth be told - it's been far too long). About halfway through, the influences were clearly apparent, but not in a way that interfered with the reading. Cloudsley's letter had me laughing out loud, something I don't often do while reading. "I loved that horse," indeed! Tristram Shandy meets Bertie Wooster meets a Shakespearean comedy. The Bard (whoever he is) would be proud!

And to top it all off is another trope that I normally hate: Vampires. But here, one is never quite sure about whether the vampires are truly vampires (though I interpreted them that way), and the subtle allusions to the possibility of vampirism (and cannibalism) are in lock step with the conversational propriety of the times. "Necromantic diabolism" is the watchword of that day. There is a fair amount of diabolism, subtly introduced, to go around.

Now, to be fair, there is one trop that I do love that also figures prominently in the whole narrative(s), that of a Bacchanalia (I was going to say "Dionysian Bacchanalia," but that's kind of overkill, isn't it?). Yes, several characters may or may not have been possessed by Panic (in it's true, Greek sense) forces. Seemingly superhuman achievements of various, sometimes sordid sorts, are reached due to the fact that the characters might not all be . . . well, themselves.

If it sounds like a confusing riot, that's because it is a glorious mess, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.

This one's worth your time, slow start or not. You will, in time, be carried away.



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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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A Token Derangement of the Senses

 

A Token Derangement of the Senses by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I never ceased to be amazed by the way I feel when I read Damian Murphy's writings. The settings change, the circumstances of exploration and discovery (always a theme) change, the characters change, yet there is always a specific feeling to a Damian Murphy story. That feeling is indescribable, incommunicable, if you will. And even if I could communicate it, I don't think I'd want to. It's a resonance that must be, by its nature, within me and no one else. But I hope that other readers can feel their own resonance with his work. I sense that many do.

A Token Derangement of the Senses, unlike just about everything I've read by Murphy, takes place in the midst of war, and is told by one of the soldiers. Yes, soldiers, or at least those who appear to have served in the military at one point or another, can be found in other works. But this is the first I've read that takes place on the field of battle . . . but it's a strange battle, one you would not expect, where the enemies are not so obvious (though they are caught in the throes of The Great War), and the front line is less a line and more of a liminal zone between ordered civilization and the chaos of destruction. It is a place of secrets and subliminal communications, where some spaces are permanently sealed off from the rest of the world and one is unable to enter by mundane means. Much is, in a word, Mystery. And it's weaving between these hidden places, these occulted structures, that I find that feeling described earlier. You must journey there yourself to find your feeling, your resonance.

This volume also contains "Wittgenstein," a short piece, also set in a time of war, penned by Alcebiades Diniz Miguel, the man and motor behind Raphus Press. It is of a more philosophical than magical bent, contrasting the high-mindedness of intellectual knowledge against the blood-and-mud reality of combat experience and its aftermath.

The book itself is, as with many Raphus Press books, dignified, with a whiff of fine art; solid, refined; correct to its contents, but elevated out of the trenches, despite its subject matter.

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The Complete Lyrics 1978-2022 by Nick Cave

 

The Complete Lyrics 1978–2022 by Nick Cave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never read Delueze's Difference and Repetition (though it is on my list), but I am aching with curiosity to see if he has anything to say about song lyrics. Because, by and large, song lyrics suck. There are notable exceptions, but they are notable because they are exceptional. I'll restrain myself from quoting any, because that's not the point of my banal and overly jejune "observation". But really, when you rip lyrics from the context of the music in which they are couched, they most often come across as just plain stupid. I think this has something to do with repetition. Songs don't have to be repetitive, but it helps, especially if you're a music producer whose goal is to shove some catchy bit into the craw of as many brains as you can. Repetition sells when it's associated with a catchy tune. You don't have to think about such music, which is part of the joy of it all, singing inane lyrics at the top of your lungs: The easier, the better.

But this isn't about joy. Well, maybe a little. But we're talking about Nick Cave here. Talk about a man who has suffered. I'll spare the details, but go read about his life some time. Ugh. Yes, he's had fame and fortune and flamboyance, but, ugh, the things he's gone through, especially the death of two of his children - no thank you. It's odd, then, that many of his most poignantly sad lyrics were written before these losses. Or maybe it's not odd at all. Maybe Nick Cave is just good at putting to paper (and music) the inevitability of pain.

Now, Nick Cave is not innocent when it comes to rote repetition in lyrics. This is especially true in his more punk phase while he was with The Birthday Party. Yes, the seeds (pun intended) of brilliance were there, but, really, they were just a pretty good punk band full of, you guessed it, repetitive lyrics. Cave's outrageous energy carried the band's music, and there's something to be said for that, but if you're looking for poetry in his early lyrics, you're going to have to squint.

Now, I can't speak to this musically, but lyrically, the album The Bad Seed (1983) seems to be a watershed moment in Cave's writing. I don't know what exactly triggered this, but here Cave's poetics enter a new phase. From this point on, things are different, and noticeably so. In the past, sheer brute power carried the day, but now you can see that the work has been crafted more carefully. Yes, there is repetition (it's inevitable in music, I know), but that repetition only serves as punctuation marks to the poetry throughout, like lyrical exclamation points or, more often, lyrical question marks.

Song lyrics, like poems, are easy to read but not easy to process, especially if you are reading them. Without voice inflections and different points of emphasis, one must supply these variations oneself, whether audibly or just in one's head. Of course this can make the songs "yours," but you are bound to have to reinterpret upon hearing the singer's expression. And really, the music is an integral part of the lyrics. So, in some ways, The Complete Lyrics didn't resonate with me (no pun intended there, believe it or not). Again, that pesky repetition, when devoid of emotional context, was just plain irritating, at points. Every exception to this, for me as a reader, came because I had a close knowledge of the songs in which the repetitive lyrics were ensconced. Context is everything, in this case, and when I knew the context well enough, my irritation wore off, soothed by the melody (even if it was a raucous one).

I suppose every Nick Cave fan has a favorite album. Mine is No More Shall We Part. It's agonizingly beautiful. Let Love In marches a close second behind as less somber (but still morose) and more animated, sometimes cartoonishly so. There are songs intermingled in all the other albums that I greatly enjoy ("From Her to Eternity" - my introduction to Nick Cave's music back in the '80s by way of Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin , and "The Carny" both jump to mind), but these two are albums which, from start to finish, I can long and languish in.

Cave, along with the Bad Seeds, has like any good artist, evolved over the years. From punk to strange calliope rhythms to the blues, his music is nothing if not twisting along a path that is unpredictable. If I ever suspected a Nick Cave album to have been written under the influence of an epic dose of LSD, it would have to be DIG, LAZARUS, DIG. It's "way out there," as they say. Definitely the most experimental (whatever that means) album, lyrically speaking. And now, since the publication of this book in it's most recent incarnation, it appears that Cave and company have taken another turn, towards the ethereal and, dare I say it? Religious?

Wherever he goes, I'm along for the ride. While I can't count myself as a member of his cult of personality, I will say that I continue to be interested, even touched deeply, from time to time, as I was when I first read the lyrics to "Nature Boy," which I'll end with here:

Nature Boy

I was just a boy when I sat down
To watch the news on TV
I saw some ordinary slaughter
I saw some routine atrocity
My father said, don't look away
You got to be strong, you got to be bold, now
He said that in the end is a beauty
That is going to save the world, now

And she moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?
My knees went weak, I couldn't speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention

And she moves among the flowers
And she floats upon the smoke
She moves among the shadows
She moves me with just one little look

You took me back to your place
And dressed me up in a deep-sea diver's suit
You played the patriot, you raised the flag
And I stood at full salute
Later on we smoked a pipe that struck me dumb
And made it impossible to speak
As you closed in, in slow motion
Quoting Sappho, in the original Greek

She moves among the shadows
She floats upon the breeze
She moves among the candles
And we moved through the days and through the years

Years passed by, we were walking by the sea
Half delirious
You smiled at me and said, babe
I think this thing is getting kind of serious
You pointed at something and said
Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing?
It was then that I broke down
It was then that you lifted me up again

She moves among the sparrows
And she walks across the sea
She moves among the flowers
And she moves something deep inside of me

She moves among the sparrows
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
And she moves right up close to me

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The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

 

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The poet Rilke here constructs a supposed prose novel which is, in my eyes, a series of extended free-verse poems. I find myself closing the book (after revisiting a few key passages a second and third time) harboring the same feelings one has after visiting a world-class art museum for a day, say the Vienna Secession Building, the Art Institute of Chicago, or the Saint Louis Art Museum. One is amazed, nearly overwhelmed by the breadth of the work housed therein and left haunted by the lingering ringing of the brain and eyes from being assaulted by so much beauty at once. One doesn't often think of the curation of the museum: the hard work done by those behind the scenes who labor to present the work of the artists, performing a sort of sacral homage to, or even worship of, the works. Of course, the best curators do all they can to let the artwork speak for itself. They disappear, are unseen and un-lauded, but it is their presentation that lets us enjoy the works to their fullest.

I use the analogy deliberately, as Rilke here presents a series of literary/poetic "portraits" of events from the life of Malte Laurids Brigge. If you're looking for plot, you won't find much of it here. But you will find several vignettes, in no particular order, from scenes of an obsessive unrequited romance to family drama to a very well-done ghost story that set my neck hairs on end with it's sudden unexpectedness. Rilke is a curator of these beautiful, often dark scenes, but also the creator.

It is strange, then, that through Brigge (and we cannot know if the author shared the character's observations), he seems to question whether a creator is necessary at all for drama, in particular and, by implication, all art, even the work he is writing at that very moment.

All of my poems . . . originated in a diferent manner, and so they are not poems. - And when I wrote my play, what a mistake I made. Was I an imitator, and a fool, that I needed a third person to describe the fate of two people who were making things difficult for each other? How easily I fell into the trap. And I ought to have known that that third person who is present in every life and every literature, that ghost of a third who has never existed, is quite without meaning, and must be disavowed. He is one of the pretexts of Nature, who is always trying to distract humankind's prying attentions from her inmost secrets. He is the screen behind which a drama occurs. He is the noise that precedes the voiceless silence of true conflict. One has the impression that every dramatist to date has found it too dificult to speak of those two who are in fact the crux; the third, precisely because he is so unreal, is the unproblematic part of the task, and they have all been able to deal with him. From the very start of their plays, one senses their impatience to bring on this third person. They can hardly wait. Once he makes his appearance, all is well. But how tedious it is if he is late: nothing whatsoever can happen without him, everything comes to a standstil, drags, and hangs fire.

There are shades of Samuel Beckett here, a precursor, perhaps, to the disappearing narrator of his (in)famous trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnameable. But in the end, Brigge abandons the notion of abandoning creators and concludes that all that is left for him is to write.

And write he does. Beautifully. As one might expect, the words are carefully chosen, but with the "novel" form, Rilke is allowed more leeway in his choices. He is not as constricted in his word choice, not beholden to the multivalent nature of poetry. He is allowed to breathe a little, and while I am enamored of Rilke's use of words in his poetry (particularly auf Deutsch), there is something to be said for being able to ease into this work without so much cerebral demand.

That is not to say the work is easy. Far from it. The displays that Brigge (i.e., Rilke) constructs are not presented in an overall exhibition that follows any sort of discernable order. The narrative "jumps" through time and space; so much so, in fact, that many have rightfully called the novel plotless. If you've followed my reviews or blogposts, you'll already know that I don't mind and, in fact, sometimes prefer books and stories that end without clear resolution, so plotless books are merely a reverse-extension of such endings. I don't mind not having a plot, but those who do will really struggle with this work and it's "jumpiness". But if you're one to wallow in beauty and big ideas and not feel compelled to have an end toward which you are driven, you'll do just fine.

Note that the lack of plot does not mean that there is a lack of progression. On the contrary, as philosophical queries blossom from Brigge's pen and the answers beckon from afar, one can see a simultaneous growth of a man coming to grips with the inevitability of death, even as he shrinks from societal norms, eventually casting those "norms" aside altogether, at least as a philosophical exercise, flattening the supposed hierarchical distinctions between mendicant and monarch. Ultimately, Brigge becomes answerable only to (insert your favored name for God here) for his writing. But in seeking divine approval, he (and we) falls short of favor, a mimetic travesty of the great "I Am":

Outwardly, a great deal has changed. I do not know how. But within and before You, Lord, within ourselves and before You who look on, are we not without action? We do discover that we do not know our part; we look for a mirror; we should like to remove our make-up and whatever is false and be real. But somewhere a forgotten piece of our disguise still adheres to us; some trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not realize that the corners of our mouths are twisted. And thus we go about, a laughing-stock and a demi-being, with neither a real existence nor a part to play-act.

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Murder Mayhem Short Stories

 

Murder Mayhem Short Stories by Christopher P. Semtner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This . . . behemoth was bequeathed to me by my daughter a couple of Christmases ago. After staring at its metallic cover for far too long, I finally took the plunge and began reading it eight months ago. I'm a slow reader, and I did a lot of other reading at the same time, so it's no surprise that it took me this long to get through this beast.

I was tempted to use the word "Leviathan" instead of "behemoth" above, but I co-edited Leviathan 3, so that would be confusing to say the least. After editing Leviathan 3, we had several reviewers who lazily defaulted to the age old "wisdom" that short fiction anthologies are, by their very nature, "uneven". I'll argue to my dying day that Lev 3 was anything but uneven. We loved these stories and were excited for each one of them to see publication, else they wouldn't have been included in the collection (and it wouldn't have won a World Fantasy Award, I believe).

Alas, sometimes the pundits are right. It's a rare thing when I find a short fiction anthology that doesn't have at least one disappointing story in it. Sacrum Regnum I and Sacrum Regnum II jump to mind as anthologies that are near perfect. But such gems are rare.

Murder Mayhem Short Stories is not one of those gems. But it's not terrible, either. It is, in reality, quite uneven. It does show that many stories that are considered "classics" are classics for a reason. Even after many years and many readings, they still shine. There were a few offerings here by "classic" authors that didn't appeal to me, but there are some amazing stories here, as well. On the contemporary front, however, I have to say that the level of literary worth was much, much lower, on average, than those of the "classics". It should go without saying, but I'm saying it anyway.

Here are my notes about each story. I'm sure I'll slay some sacred cows here, and some will consider my opinions dross. Those are the dangers of reviewing such an eclectic bunch of stories (although they all do center, more or less, around the theme of murder). So here are my notes (possibly slightly modified since I've had time to meditate on them and the stories):

The first story, "The Wendigo Goes Home," by Sara Dobie Bauer was, well, "meh". It's a fine story, but nothing all that original, if I'm being honest. Dialogue was fine, but characterization might have been a little stronger if the story had a little breathing room.

I think that "The Death of Halpin Fraser" is the first Ambrose Bierce story I've ever read. Though the dialogue is dated and a bit stilted, this was a solid story of madness and murder. For some reason I'm reminded of True Detective season one, though the cosmic horror here is only implied. It's a good little spooky outing, and I'd like to read more Bierce, which is a good thing because the next tale is also his.

Bierce's "The Moonlit Road" may be one of the most depressing short stories I have ever read. The clever use of a transcription from a medium gives us the ghost's perspective of events (after those of the innocent son and guilty husband are presented). The ghost's recounting is the most tragic of all. Bierce successfully subverts our expectations in an emotionally-impactful way.

Take Shakespeare's"Comedy of Errors," remove all the funny bits and replace then with tragedy, but keep all the elements of mistaken identity, and you essentially get Steen Steensen Blicher's "The Rector of Veilbye," though not half as clever as The Bard.

Michael Cebula's "Funeral" is very clearly not my kind of story. Revenge stories are not my thing, especially when the revenge is precipitated by child abuse. Just no.

At first, I thought the narrator of "Into the Blue" suffered a debilitating kind of synasthesia, but in time I figured out that Carolyn Charron was using colors for great thematic effect. A good story, only slightly too-much "on the nose," but not enough to throw the story off.

G.K. Chesterton's "Dr. Hyde, Detective, and the White Pillars Murder" might be one of the more enjoyable pieces of detective fiction I've read because it unashamedly mocks the very tropes of detective fiction in the actual dialogue between characters. The key here is subversion, and Chesterton is a master of it, flipping "the detective story" inside out, exposing all of its weaknesses; makeing a great story of it.

Wilkie Collin's "The Traveller's Story of a Terribly Strange Bed" might win the prize for weirdest title, but the story is exactly what it says it is "on the tin," so to speak. It's a little corny, but clever.

"Who Killed Zebedee?", another Wilkie Collins story, was . . . not terribly thrilling. It's a middling tale of murder with a not-very-suprising culprit.

Dickens being Dickens in his story "The Trial for Murder" slowly builds what becomes a sustained narrative about justice from the grave. The dead have much more influence than we might think on the proceedings of this life. The building dread sustains for a long time under Dicken's adept hand, but the twist of the pen at the end takes this story to the next level.

Dick Donovan, in "The Problem of Dead Wood Hall," proved decisively that an indecisive outcome is sometimes more interesting than a case that is neatly tied-up with an evidentiary ribbon. To quote Deep Purple "It's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase". Satisfaction might be demanded, but the lack of full deliverance is a sort of deliverance itself.

James Dorr's "Mr. Happy Head" is a surreal tale of suffering, cruelty, and possession. The prose is intentionally simple and thus impactful. This is a disturbing tale that will have you reading between the lines to know exactly what horrific things are happening or have happened (it's difficult to tell which). Time and space and memory and acts slip and slide over each other, often greased by blood.

While easily predictable, th plot of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Brazilian Cat" was satisfying. Yes, there distant rings of the Holme's stories, but that has to do with Doyle's writing style instead of anything that can be directly or indirectly associated with Sherlock. Besides, the crime scene was far too messy for the great detective to stoop to investigate this open and shut case.

Tim Foley's "Nineteen Sixty-Five Ford Falcon" is as creepy for its sales-pitchy narrator as for the story itself. An intriguing story, but not a very satisfying read.

"Mama Said" was far too simple with a telegraphed ending that did not surprise or satisfy at all. I appreciate the effort Steven Thor Gunnin put into getting inside the narrator's head, but I found it all so hackneyed. A forgettable story, sorry.

I'm still trying to figure out why Kate Heartfield's "Six Aspects of Cath Baduma" is included in this book. It's a fine high-fantasy story. Yes, it's gory and grim, but it just doesn't fit in anywhere here. Maybe the editors wanted to show "breadth" in the stories, but this is way out in left field. Still a decent story.

William Hope Hodgson's tale "The House Among the Laurels" is a short story about his famous detective Carnacki. It is an outstanding tale that keeps one on the edge of one's seat. I love this sort of "Occult Detective" narrative, complete with pentagrams, candles, and ghost-hunting equipment. I would gladly read a book full of these tales.

Another Hodgson story, "The Thing Invisible" sees Carnacki blindly searching in the dark for a ghost in a chapel and exercising his mind by way of . . . engineering?

At the beginning, I expected David M. Hoenig's "Freedom is Not Free" to turn into a Blade Runner pastiche. But Hoenig's plot twists took this in a different enough direction that it wasn't just a cyber-noir copycat. I really enjoyed this piece and it deserves to be considered on its own merits, which are high in my eyes. By the way, if you've even wonderd what the pineal gland is for . . . well, you'll see.

ETA Hoffman's "Mademoiselle de Scuderi" is, essentially, a disney princess story of a poor girl and her wrongly-accused lover escape the clutches of a well-meaning, but ruthless judge, by appeal to the king through Mademoiselle de Scuderi. It's complicated. And well written, if a little over-wrought and even more archaic than Hoffman's other stories (those I've read, at least). Still a good mystery.

Liam Hogan's "How to Build a Mass Murderer" is clever. It's got an interesting twist or two, but it didn't strike me as anything spectacular. Color me jaded.

Is Robert E. Howard's "Pigeons from Hell" a Conan story? It has a panther! And walking dead! And lots of gore! And . . . pigeons? No, it doesn't pass the Conan test, but it is a fantastic and horrific pulp read. There were some nice twists that balked at predictability. And he takes some not-so-subtle pot-shots at Lovecraft, which was funny (to me).

"The Two-Out-of-Three-Rule," by Patrick J. Hurley is a reminder that if something seems too good to be true, it is. I have to admit I hooked into this story about a bunch of roleplaying nerds pretty quickly. It was a good tale, solidly told, with some defiance of expectations. It wasn't a vampire story, which I thought at first. It's worse than that.

I could see the ending of "The Well" from ten miles away, but that still didn't spoil W.W. Jacobs' handling of a well-told tale (pun intended) that read like something straight out of a pulp-horror comic.

At first, while reading Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony," I thought "this may be the most boring, tedious Kafka story I've ever read". Thankfully, about 3/4ths of the way through, things got really, really interesting and increasingly horrific. The staid and true bureacracy as mental/emotional torture gave way to physical body horror, which suited me just fine.

I really enjoyed "Getting Shot in the Face Still Stings" by Michelle Ann King. It's a tale about time, persistence, and the patience of an angel. No, wait, the patience of a demon. I really enjoyed this snappy little story.

As colonial and condescending as ever, Rudyard Kipling delivers a simple tale in "The Return of Imray". A classic case of Orientalism, but still a good read.

"Shared Loss" by Gerri Leen just wasn't my kind of story. "Slight" is the word I'll use for it. Not my cup of tea.

I've read a lot of Lovecraft, including the present story, "The Hound". I know what's coming. And I know and am annoyed by how Lovecraft contradicts himself in the same text. But there's just something about his writing that "rings," that isn't apparent on the page. The writing no longer amazes me as it did when I was young, but it still "rings".

I have a soft (and invisible and squishy) spot for Lovecraft's "From Beyond". Bizarre as it is, and despite the mad ravings of Tillinghast (nice name, by the way), Lovecraft shows more restraint here than in other stories, and I think the story is stronger because of it.

K.A. Mielke's "Drive Safe" is just short of predictable. It's an okay story, but is kind of buried in the immensity of this collection. Maybe this book is too big for it's britches?

Edith Nesbit's "In the Dark" is chilling, a somber tale. Nesbit sets the tale up wonderfully with the opening paragraph (too long to share in this update). It's an entrancing riddle that unfolds in such a way that one is still left puzzled at the end. An aickmanesque story of the highest calendar, and I can't give any praise greater than that.

The other day, my son asked "dad, what's the word for when someone walls another person up to kill them? 'Immurementing'?"

My answer, which he knew I was going to say: "Amontilladoing". We both had a good laugh at Fortunato's expense. Of course, Poe's story, a classic, gets five stars (and a lot of bricks).

Arthu B. Reeve's "The Azure Ring" combines all the disciplines of chemistry, ethnography, capitalism, law, and detective work into one fabulously boring story.

Daydream? Ghost story? Liminal magic realism? It doesn't matter. "Recreation with the Paralytics" is a numinous tale, in any case. It will lull you into its own sacral reality, chestnuts, wheelchairs, and all.

As I began to catch the cadence of Alexandra Camille Renwick's "Redux" I thought "okay, I can tell where this is going". And I could. Clearly. Thing is, it was a tight story, so there's that.

A suicidal skin walker? Yep, that's what we have in Fred Senes's "The First Seven Deaths of Mildred Orly". Not bad. Not great.

Robert Louis Stevenson's archaic gait in "Markheim" is clunky, to say the least. This I a tale that shows its age, as well. But the internal psychology profile of a murderer is well-realized and enough to make the reader squirm in the seat a bit.

Bram Stoker feeds the fuel for Edward Gorey in later years with his harrowing, yet somehow hilarious (to me, at least) "The Dualitists". I cringed, then laughed out loud. Am I a bad person for finding such a shock of egregious violence outrageously funny? Probably. I'll save you a seat in Hell.

Contrary to the excellent story preceding it in this collection, I just could not get into Stoker's "The Burial of the Rats". It probably "just me," but I never felt fully engaged with the story.

"Mister Ted" by Donald Jacob Uivlugt uses a tried and trite trope: the evil toy that commits murder. It's an old tale, gone thin by this time in western cultural history. But Uivlugt does a nice job of exploring the evolution of the protagonist's not-nice psychology.

Ethel Lina White's "Cheese" is a high watermark of neo-noir (in attitude, if not in the trappings). From beginning to end, it is sharp and powerful, twisting expectations and pulling the reader into its trap. It's a brilliant piece of fiction. Five stars. One of the best stories in this collection.

Sardonic, with a touch of grim humor, "Corpses Removed, No Questions Asked," by Dean H. Wild just didn't do it for me. Just not my thing.

Etiquette, murder, and the upending of propriety. What else would one expect from Oscar Wilde. Unsuccessful murder is the (dis)order of the day in "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime: A Study of Duty". As usual, Wilde mocks the stubbornness of the aristocracy in this grim comedy of manners that makes its point without being too blatant.

I'll admit that I rolled my eyes ten paragraphs in to "Fragments of Me". I thought "trite" and "hackneyed", which might be true. But Nemma Wollenfang does such an excellent job of tying out the emotional impact of Multiple Personality Disorder, that I ended the story truly impressed.

Tallying up everything, I count ten stories I put at "5 stars". That's a good bunch. I also have four "1 stars". You can probably see where this is heading: The average was, as you no-doubt guessed, 3 stars. I will say that the high points were high points. But the notion of short story anthologies being, on average . . . well, average, holds in this case.

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The Explosion of a Chandelier

 

The Explosion of a Chandelier by Damian Murphy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like any good sleight-of-hand, even the publisher name, "Occult Books," is a deception, at least in the popular conception of what "Occult" means. Here, I think it's wise to refer to the original meaning of the word: hidden from view. You won't find wild sabbats, goat sacrifice (virgin or otherwise), or sulfur and brimstone here. No, this occultation of of a more refined sort. Something far more interesting (and sinister in the trickiest of ways).

What we have here is an exploration of the imagination and the manifestation of the imagination into the "real" world. This world is filled with subterfuge and the already-mentioned slight-of-hand. It is labyrinth whose walls shift. A game where the rules change in unexpected, winsome ways. But it's a make-believe which breaches the wall to that-which-is-hidden. These games and labyrinths create thin cracks in the zones that contain realities.

You'll recall this from your childhood, the imaginative playfulness and discovery of places undiscovered by most of society, the unveiling of the "truth" behind individual identities, the understanding of the true mechanism of seemingly ordinary objects that are much more than they seem on the surface.

Some of us are lucky enough to have survived into adulthood with those same revelatory faculties intact. But we have to work at it. It's a gift, to be sure, but a gift that has to be wrested, nay, stolen from the universe.

The Explosion of a Chandelier is a carefully-encrypted guidebook on how one might access such gifts, if one is bold enough to sieze them! But, like Damian's other works of a similar ilk (The Exalted and the Abased, The Academy Outside of Ingolstadt, and Abyssinia all jump to mind), those who are not accustomed to seeking for hidden things, who have forgotten the very real power of imagination, or who lack the courage to sieze the scepter that cracks the barriers between realities . . . well, they simply do not, cannot, and will not Know. On the surface, they will read a story about young men living in Spain during the age of anarchic revolution, a story about hotels and keys and bombs and chandeliers.

But, trust me, there's much more in there, SO much more! Hidden between the words, behind the pages, and most importantly, inside. Look inside! Don't let your reading eyes deceive you. Or, actually, please do!

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Dhalgren

 

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The older I grow, the more I realize that my childhood might have been exceptional. Not exceptionally good, mind you, just an exception to what the "normal" American child experiences. I was raised as an Air Force brat. Born in Germany, lived in The Philippines, Italy, England, and all over the US (Texas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wyoming). Since the commencement of "adulting," I've lived in Pennsylvania, California, Utah, and Wisconsin. This shiftiness, especially in the first eighteen years of life, led to forming and cutting friendships and love in rapid order. I have no idea what it's like to have a "hometown". That just doesn't exist for me. I keep contact with a select few people I knew as a child. And even though I've lived in Wisconsin for nearly thirty years now, I still feel like a wanderer on this planet.

In all these journeyings, I've come to appreciate places for their unique mood, style, atmosphere, amusements, and shortcomings. When I visit a new place, I like to soak up the ambience and get to know the place. Cities, in particular, have personalities, I've found. My favorites are Oxford (UK), Vienna (Austria), and Madison, Wisconsin (US).

I've also met some strange characters in my life's wanderings. When I was young, I had more time and freedom to get to know individuals who lived out of the mainstream of society. Freaks, geeks, punks, goths, metalheads, gangsters, ex-soldiers, mystics, chronic alcoholics and drug abusers, the chronically mentaly ill, the homeless, other wanderers. The list can go on and on. I find humans endlessly fascinating and endlessly frustrating. I have a love/hate relationship with the human race. For the record: mostly, I love 'em!

I find that my experiences have everything to do with Dhalgren. Everything.

I'll be honest, I was shocked at how much I related to many of the characters in this book. Because I knew them. Some I still know. I won't name names, but the carnival of personalities in this work are almost all people I've met. It's an ugly bunch, with a lot of deviance from social norms. These are "my people".

But the real main character in this story is not the protagonist, who has forgotten his name and is simply called Kid throughout. The main charachter in this story is the city, Bellona.

Like any city, this work of psychogeographical semi-apocalyptic fiction is not particularly "linear". In fact, the last section's typeset is intentionally non-linear, with "asides" that contrast sharply with the other text in its immediate vicinity, a choppy fluidity between space and time-lines, and an aggressively experimental layout. Much like a city. In fact, I'd say this is one of the greatest works of psychogeography I've read to date.

And why "semi-apocalyptic"? Before I answer, let me point out that my Dad, an avid and voracious reader of science fiction (I owe that addiction to him), had this book on his bedside shelf for many months. I don't know if he ever finished it, but it eventually disappeared some time in the early '80s. So when I began the book, I was expecting all the regular tropes of science fiction, but something of a higher intellectual train than the pulps. Well, I was altogether wrong. Dhalgren is a semi-apocalyptic work, a story set in a city that has become a sort of pocket dimension, it's own entity, while still existing in a decidedly non-apocalyptic America. It's a place that time and space didn't forget, really, but a place that time and space set aside for its own little apocalypse. Something like "The Zone" in Roadside Picnic, or like what happened to the planet of Tekumel in the Empire of the Petal Throne universe.

In Bellona, things have become . . . disordered. Imagine that the late '60s and early '70s never ended, but that law and order were simply absent. It's not utter chaos - people still gather in groups, some in communes, some in gangs, some in ultra-luxurious compounds, some in . . . utter denial of the situation they are in (they try to maintain a "normal" lifestyle, despite the crumbling city and social order). Yes, there is violence, but there is also love and loyalty. As Depeche Mode used to say "People are People". And so it is in Bellona.

But Bellona is a jealous city. It doesn't let go so easily that one just walks away. Something undefined and strange compels many people to stay, though some do "escape" . . . if they avoid the forces that have been put in place to contain the decay of the city from escaping into the rest of the world. Well, it's not so mystical as it sounds, but as in many cities, people find it difficult, sometimes impossible (because of ideology, economics, or relationships) to leave.

Is the city alive? Maybe, maybe not.

Are the people who enter it under some kind of geas that doesn't allow them to leave? Possibly.

Will everyon who reads this work enjoy it? I doubt it.

Is Dhalgren a great work of experimental science fiction? Absolutely.

I'm glad I journeyed there. Though it was rough going, at times. Very rough going. I myself was, for a time, trapped against my will. But, as with many of the places I've seen in my life, I would return, if only for a visit.

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The Graphologist and Other Stories

 

When Rhys Hughes is on a roll, nothing can stop him. Of the four stories in this short collection, two are good, two are outstanding, and the stand outs were not the ones I was expecting to shine. I went into "The Puppet Show" thinking, oh no, here we go with a Jon Padgett copycat. But this story twisted in unexpected ways and unfolded a unique tale of existential dread that proved every bit as effective as anything Padgett, Ligotti, etc., have produced, while remaining true to its own vision of cosmic horror. The second standout story, "The Filtered Ones," about ghost-pirates with a psychogeographic layer, flips from existential dread to enduring hope. Yes, I know, ghost-pirates. I was very skeptical going into this one, ready to be disappointed. But the story turned out to be a delight! The other two tales, "The Tipping Point" and "The Graphologist" are both good, but they are very much overshadowed by the greatness of "The Puppet Show" and "The Filtered Ones". Nothing disappoints, and Hughes excels here at taking the reader's expectations and fully flipping them on their head.Strongly recommended, especially for the two standout stories!

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If you like my writing and want to help out, ko-fi me at https://ko-fi.com/forrestaguirre. Every little bit is seen and appreciated! Thank you!