The Winter People

Jennifer McMahon
The Winter People

Doubleday, 2014

The novel begins with fragments of diaries, written in 1908 by Sara Harrison Shea and these diary pages will be later published as a hardcover book. One of the subplots is about the mysterious death of Sara and her daughter Gertie, another storyline happen nowadays, and in the center of it are two sisters, Ruthie and Fawn, whose mother Alice suddenly disappears one morning.

After a drunken night 16-year-old Ruthie wakes up from the words of her sister Fawn. Their mother Alice did not sleep at home and didn’t return home by the morning. Children's father died, and Alice, ex-hippie, raised her daughters alone in a big house in the town of West Hall, Vermont, located next to the wood and stone array, named the Devil’s Hand. Alice lived off the grid, grew vegetables and bred chickens, selling products at the market, for which she received the nickname the Egg Lady. Alice completely denied all modern devices, lived modestly, was very reliable and just could not disappear, leaving the children alone. Ruthie does not know who to turn to, and looks around the room for clues where her mother may have gone to. With her sister’s help they find a cache with a small pistol, a pair of driving licenses in the name of spouses O`Rourke, and a book of diaries by Sara Harrison Shea. Suspecting that the mother could be involved in something illegal, Ruthie does not report the missing mother to the police, and wants to find answers on her own.

First, it is worth noting that the book has not the most accessible structure. McMahon constantly switches between the characters’s point of view, change the third and first person, uses the direct narrative, the diary fragments, in addition alternating time layers, from the end of the XIX century to the present. I was not sure that the author would successfully implement a very intricate structure. I must admit that McMahon managed to build a house of cards-complicated plot, and it does not fall apart until the very end.

Perhaps only switch between Sara’s narratives are not quite justified. Part of her story is told through the diary and part through direct first-person narrative - and also in the first person. So, the diary and non-diary parts has no real difference.

McMahon is successfully controling paranormal activity in her book. In fact, The Winter People is a novel symbiosis between the mystery and the zombie thriller. Skeptics will find that the author leads us by the nose and there will be a logical explanation for everything, the dreamer will sweep detective elements as clouding otherworldly puzzle. The main point, in general, is that McMahon very sensitively handles evil spirits. People seem to see sleepers\spirits, but it can be attributed to a vivid imagination of a child or inflamed mind of a grieving woman. And when Sara brings her daughter back, the daughter communicates with her mother through knocks and notes, that are not the most obvious actions, pointing to evil spirit.

The book makes one guess until the very end, whether or not the dead could be ressurected. One discrepancy still exists: the essence of sleepers is not quite clearly explained, because it is not clear what these zombi-like creatures eat.

The novel entertains you with amusing secrets, in several places causes goosebumps, but goes not very high from the ground. McMahon does not strive for mysteries of the universe, keeping close to home. Heroes of her books are not all-powerful villains and superwomen, hacking their way everywhere. Ordinary people fall in complicated story with their little problems. Fawn is often sick and wants to play games, Ruthie wants to go to college, but due to lack of money should for a year stay to help her mother around the house and on the farm, Katherine has doubts about the fidelity of her deceased husband. Especially fascinating here are the dialogues between the two sisters. And in general the chapters on two days of life of Ruthie and Fawn during the mother's absence are the best in the whole book.

It’s a little disappointing that in the final quarter the characters lose all common sense and reason, otherwise how can we explain their trip into the tunnels where obviously something bad will happen with them. McMahon too easily, as in a YA fantasy, found a way out of the labyrinth plot. The finale adds a spoonful of tar, but does not spoil the entire picture.

The Winter People is a quality entertainment, a page-turner and smart horror.

The Troop

Nick Cutter
The Troop

Gallery Books, 2014

A group of teenage boy scouts led by their mentor come to an abandoned island located off the coast of Canada for the weekend to do what Scouts usually do: set fires, navigate the terrain, telling each other stories and generally comprehend the lessons of survival in the wilderness. Scouts do not take with them any mobile devices, but because of the threat of the storm ahead Scoutmaster takes one radio, in case they’ll need to contact with the mainland. Two days later, a a boat is to take the troop from the island to the mainland. The troop has no boat, they are completely cut off from the mainland.

The troop is led by Tim Riggs, a former military doctor who knows his scouts almost from the cradle. Teens respect Tim, although it is obvious that their Scoutmaster is not macho, he’s quite an ordinary man, and even his leadership abilities are overrated. Riggs and five teenagers, Kent, Shelly, Newton, Ephraim, Max, stay in the house, where previously were imported products and other necessary items.

First night on the island scouts already have gone to bed in a cabin when Riggs notices how a boat closes to the island. A man gets out of the boat, goes to the house and asks Tim for food. In the dark Riggs looks at the stranger and notices that he is incredibly thin. Not daring to refuse a stranger, Tim gives him food and allowes to sleep in the house, after closing the door of the room where the scouts sleep. The stranger wakes everyone at night, smashing the radio to the floor. Tim calms the stranger down and examines him better. The man is a bag of bones, so thin people just can’t be. Under the skin of the stranger Tim notices movement, as if someone creeps under.

Sometimes it all comes down to a cliche. There is a book, built entirely on a pattern. We accept this pattern as something self-evident. And then everything depends on the writer: how well he will be able to decorate a cliché, how he can genetically modify a pattern.

The Troop is a fairly typical horror, almost adjacent to the subgenre "zombie horror." There is a virus that causes a person to eat everything in his path and the carrier of the virus itself almost becomes a skeleton, so he loses muscle tissue on the body. Infection can be passed, and, as in the case of zombies, getting quite a small amount of tissue from an infected person is enough to get sick infected. Nick Cutter varies a tired zombie scheme so that the action of the novel takes place not on the large territory as it usually happens, but on a strictly confined space. Cut off from the world, five Scouts will have to fight for their life not with a zombie invasion, but between themselves.

Impermeability gives the author to forget tricks of fighting with flesh-eaters and focus on psychology. Cutter gradually reveals the nature of each scout, throwing into the novel a fair amount of flashbacks. And not without a cliché: a boy who has an anger management problem, the second scout is such fat geek, dreaming of a normal life, the third is a sadistic psychopath. The idea of a sociopath in the world full of zombies is also not new, though not so common. But the character of Shelley helps to better reveal the nature of cruelty, enthusiasm to violence among children.

The book doesn’t offer plot twists on every page, but you can not say that everything is predictable. Suspence keeps up to the finale, and it may seem obvious, what happens in the finale, the important here is not the "what" but "how" and "why."

Gradual unfolding mystery of the escape of the experimental patient and secret experiment using documentary pieces can be called successful. Cutter does not lay the blame on anyone for what happened. Fragments of transcripts from the tribunal, record experiments, magazine articles give the book the effect "based on real events."

The Troop does not open new lands, but it is above average in the category of horror. And yes: it’s a novel for adults rather than for teenagers, because of the abundance of foul language and some scenes with blood and guts.

Fish Bites Cop!

David James Keaton
Fish Bites Cop!

Comet Press, 2013

What the stories by David James Keaton resemble, it is the feeling as if someone shouts something right in your face. And the shouts are not the most pleasant thing. This collection of short stories are hard to read because as a first reaction to the outcry in the face is to step back and look away, though, and you can shout something in return. But just as the reader is essentially a passive person, he can not to answer with the cry.

To not have laid ears, you’d better read Fish Bites Cop! in small portions. Keaton has gathered numerous short stories in his collection, all written over the past few years. All the stories to a more or less degree are against the authorities (and here, in addition to the cops, it is firefighters and paramedics, too), variety of genres collected here is a matter of respect. There is horror, crime, what is called weird fiction, pure realism.

Variety of genres should not confuse you in this: Keaton is experimenting not only with the plots, but mostly with style. If the short stories to cut into individual components and see what can be called a plot, we will not find there anything radically new. Humbled and humiliated student kills his school coaches. Up to his neck into debt because of a woman, a casino dealer is planning to cheat the casino, where he works, for a small amount of money. A gang of degenerates keeps surviving remnant of a small town off the water. If Keaton did not experiment with the delivery of these plots, more than half of included pieces would hardly deserve the reader's attention. But Keaton juggles stylistic devices and has thereby attracts attention to his prose. And when Keaton-fantasist and Keaton-stylist find each other, and then we have unusual, weird, amazing stories, like «Queen Excluder», «Schrödinger's Rat» or «Third Bridesmaid from the Right».

However, the same experiments sometimes harm the stories, even to complete unreadability. Keaton can be turned the wrong way, and a story, which already consists almost entirely of dialogue, becomes a mere chatter about nothing. Keaton also utilizes part of the ideas for several time, so that you can find almost the same monologues in different stories. A number of stories are half-baked in general: these are the rudiments of ideas that need more polish and editing. Bumping into weak stories in the book, you come to the conclusion that it was necessary to filter stories better. Weak stories smeared overall positive impression about the book and the author.

And it is so hard, of course, when someone shouts in the face without stopping.

The Eighth Black Book of Horror

The Eighth Black Book of Horror
Selected by Charles Black

Mortbury Press, 2011

I highly praised the two previous "Black Books" and even became a fan of the series. Charles Black who compiled and edited these books was doing a great job, managing to select for the series from this small press high-quality stories, written by the famous writers and by very little known outside the genre and the UK. Top short stories from previous books were, first of all, well-told stories, but at the same time, they still scared readers (although the horror genre is such a thing that you never know what can really scare, because one is scared of one thing and the other by another thing).

No matter how good the two previous anthologies of the series were, we have to admit that this book, the eighth, bears no comparison with the previous ones. Moreover, “The Eighth Black Book” is a complete failure. Usually, if the anthology contains at least one outstanding story, the book can not be named a failure. In this anthology, there are no outstanding stories, and just a handful of good ones. A good part of the stories I could not even finish reading to the end, they were so formulaic and ineptly written.

The main problem of almost all the stories in this collection (and even the stories by professionals suffer from this problem) is a lack of a coherent story. As a rule, the author has an idea how to "scare" (in quotes because in 95% of cases it is not scary) the reader, but this simply is not enough. Before we get to the scary and shocking, according to the authors, end, we have to wade through a mountain of cliches, or through a sluggish backstory, or even through the stiffness and awkwardness of style.

The best (although they are still pretty average in quality) stories of the collection are «Home By the Sea» by Stephen Bacon, «The Other Tenant» by Mark Samuels and «How The Other Half Dies» by John Llewellyn Probert. They are all moderately scary, with the "shocking" endings, to the extent clichéd, but pleasurable.

Let's hope the next book in the series will be on the level with the sixth and seventh volumes, not this one.

Apostle Rising

Richard Godwin

Apostle Rising

Black Jackal Books, 2011

Detective Chief Inspector Frank Castle once could not find a serial killer, the man responsible for so-called Woodland killings. Everything pointed to Karl Black, but the investigation has failed to prove his involvement in the brutal killings. Black remained at large, and Castle was trampled. He’d been humiliated, lost his wife, was treated for depression. Now, many years later, a copycat kills people in a similar manner. Castle thinks that the killings are committed by a person who well studied original killings. The inspector and his partner Jacki Stone suspect that Black once again implicated in the killings, but detectives still have no leads. Black is now the head of the secret and powerful sect, and murders are clearly ritual. The situation is complicated by the fact that killings are commited by, perhaps, two maniacs. One kills prostitutes, the other - politicians. Castle will do everything to find a cruel copycat. Or two.

The fact that Black comes up in the second series of murders already indicates his involvement in the killings. Black’s sectarianism and violence homicides give s reader first puzzle: whether will there be a rational explanation of the crime or there will be the intervention of supernatural forces? Nevertheless, the chapters, in which we see the actions of Black, are the most tortuous and they’re almost not moving the events. One chapter is similar to another so that as you listen to an interesting story told by a stutter: interesting, but too ductile.

The investigation is moving, albeit slowly. The killer always is one step ahead. Castle, which once again is humiliated by the press for his impotence, uses help of not only Stone, but also psychologists, establishing motives and psychological portrait of of the killer. After a few sagging middle the book pleases unexpected plot twists.

Ironically, the most interesting character in the book is not Castle or Black, both of them are full of cliches, but the partner of Castle, Jacki Stone. Her role in the investigation is not exactly clear, but what makes her interesting is her relationship with her boyfriend, Don. Stone is definitely not as dependent on the investigation as Castle, but spends nearly all her time at work. The storyline with Stone and Don are not carried through, and ending suggests that perhaps we’ll see a sequel.

«Apostle Rising» is an entertaining book, but unnecessarily prolonged. The novel would be definitely better if it’d shorter by a half.

The Language of Dying

Sarah Pinborough
The Language of Dying

PS Publishing, 2009

«There is a language to dying. It creeps like a shadow alongside the passing years and none of us can avoid oit taste in our mouths. Whether we are sick or healthy it finds us eventually. It is a secret hushed thing that lives in the whisper of the nurses' starched skirts as they rustle up and down our stairs. They've taught me to face the language a syllable at a time, slowly creating an unwilling meaning from it ». So begins this story about dying. In the family the father dies, and five his children gather in the home to be with his father the last few days before his death. The story is told by one of the daughters, who took care of his father, while everyone else went away and minded their own businesses. The story tells from the first person view, but with permanent patches of the second person, this is a kind of monologue, addressed to the dying. Coming father's death is not only the death of one individual, but also the death of the family, its disintegration. A few days before his death it’s the last chance for children to stay together, reunite, solve problems, to forgive one another, and then again to return to their lives, not particularly good ones (especially for the three brothers).

A reader of the novella is also supposed to become a member of the family as an equal surviving parent's death. Inside everything stops, you are a little shaking, throat dry. In such cases, the death of someone else always seems worse than your own.

Before his death, a person leaves all too much, and no one is between here and there. So reading this book, the reader is left alone with a book - with pain, fear and hope.

The Seventh Black Book of Horror

The Seventh Black Book of Horror
Ed. by Charles Black

Mortbury Press, 2010

Anthologies, themed or not, almost always is a cat in a bag. If the collection has at least half of successful stories, then this book is successful. And it does not depend on big names on the cover: the same failure can be obtained from an anthology of small press and from large publishing houses. Previous collection edited by Charles Black, The Sixth Black Book of Horror, included high-quality stories, and this year, another anthology is not worse than last year’s one. Nine short stories (and this is bigger part of the book) here are if not masterpieces, then the strong work of the short form most writers wouldn’t be ashamed of. Accordingly, «The Seventh Black Book of Horror» can be called a good anthology.

The trend, which can be seen in the collection this year, is that a number of successful stories here are completely devoid of supernatural elements. They are not horror stories, there is more appropriate definition, and it is not even strange prose, but a wild prose.

Falls into this category, for example, the story of John Llewellyn Probert «It Begins At Home». Paul Reynolds is a photographer on the verge of despair: the family is sitting with no money and is about to be evicted from the house, - he no matter how should get an order from a large firm. But the manager does not like photos of the starving and suffering children - «The child isn't crying enough». Paul does not know what sacrifices he would have to go to get the job. Probert masterfully constructs the story, creating homage to the horrors of the 80s, but not using otherworldly forces. David Williamson's story «Rest in Pieces» could well be in an anthology of crime or neonoir, if the author would change the style of the narrative. This is the story of a pathologist, who develops a daring plan. You can’t read the story in all seriousness because black humor can be seen there a mile away. «Ted's Collection» by Claude Lalumiere can be attributed to the horror; it's just such a wild prose. This is the story of how cruelty and pain replace all the rest of emotions inside the people. Craig Herbertson in his «New Teacher» combined elements of old school horror, crime, dystopia, sprinkling it all with black humor. Biting story.

Joel Lane is as always lyrical. Here he presented with the story «Morning's Echo» about a detective who finds a missing person with the help of dreams. There are of course zombies in the book. In David Riley’s «Romero's Children» cause of dead walking was medicine of immortality. The ones who took the untested drug became zombies. In a story there is an unusual ending, though, this already stands out in a series of colorless zombie stories. The best story in the anthology was «Swell Head» by Stephen Volk (after this story, I sincerely believe that Volk probably is the best storyteller in Britain). It’s a grotesque story about a boy, whose head eventually is growing rapidly in size, and the body remains almost infantile, it is a perfect illustration of the phrase "we are responsible for those who we have tamed." The older brother of big-head freak sacrifices his life for the needs of the giant head. Volk is accurate in detail, and in the end gets an ace from his sleeve.

Do not be afraid of the word "horror" on the cover, it's just a collection of different stories of high quality.

Smokeheads

Doug Johnstone
Smokeheads

Faber and Faber, 2011

Four thirty-something-year-old friends go to spend the weekend at a remote Scottish island Islay. Adam is obsessed with whiskey snobish loser who wants to show the rest of them the place, which produces the best whiskey in Scotland and the friends all together can taste all whiskeys. However, the purpose of the trip for Adam is not only fun, he also wants to ask his friend Roddy to loan him million pounds to buy a deserted place on Islay to start there the manufacture of whiskey. At the bar four friends meet with Molly and her sister Ash. Molly is a guide there and remembers Adam from his previous visits to the island. Adam would not mind to start a relationship with Molly, but there is one problem - Molly's ex-husband, a psychopath and at the same time policeman Joe, who makes chaos on the island. When Roddy refuses to invest money in Adam’s idea - «Adam, you're one of life's losers, you always have been and you always will be. You're almost forty and still working in a shop, for fuck's sake. You've spent your whole life being petrified of taking a chance on anytning. That doesn't necessarily makes you a bad person, but it sure as shit doesn't make you the kind of person who runs a successful business either. You never take risks, it's that simple, so you'll always be one of the also-rans. You're a beta male through and through», - Adam gets mad and starts to insult Roddy in the car. Adam beats Roddy, and the latter loses control and crashes the car into a ditch. And this accident is only the beginning of the horrors that four friends and Molly will see.

Do not be confused by such a beginning, in which the original part appears only the presence of whiskey, but otherwise - like a mix of two dozen not the best horror movies. This book is the highest grade. It really is a horror without supernatural elements, and brilliant novel of black humor, and an essay on "how I spent the autumn", and 290-page sobering. «Smokeheads» has all the qualities of a good bottle of whiskey. This bottle hits you over the head so that long you can not recover, but at the same time, this bottle is not an empty container, within the novel - burning moisture. Johnston did not write a regular cliched novel with psycho cops, cocaine sniffing, burning people alive, but a book about the people on the edge, about that hangover happens not only from whiskey, that some events in life will not be able to forget, even get drunk in trash. For the loser Adam this trip to the island could become a turning point in his life. It has become to him but not as the way as he expected it. Roddy is more flippant, he is thinking less and doing more. Th most courageous there is Molly, it’s stranger, that Johnston describes her very sparingly, not letting even suggest what she experienced after what had happened.

«Smokeheads» is certainly a page-turner with the brilliant dialogues. Reducing the description to a minimum, Johnston practically with dialogues only reveals the characters. Gallons of black humor help to move rushing story. Convulsive laughing and absorbing «Smokeheads» to the bottom, to the end of the novel you at the same time are getting drunk from pleasure and sobering from what’s happening in the book.

It is recommended to drink this novel at one sitting.

8 Pounds

Chris F. Holm
8 Pounds

Self-published e-book, 2010

Chris F. Holm’s self-published collection includes eight stories, most of which has a solid weight, making the book, despite its name, much heavier than eight pounds. Holm writes in different genres: horror, modern neonoir, so-called "dark fiction." The word "dark" is suited the best to describe the entire collection of short stories.

Theme of childhood is very close to the author, and two story, opening and closing, are built on this theme. In the «Seven Days of Rain» in town for several days it rains non-stop, washing away everything in its path - including the secrets of the past. The protagonist of the story Eddie and his friends, when they were kids, played together, when their friend Timmy had an accident. The boys hid the body so that no one has found it. But the terrible flood washes away the remains of a body of the boy. One of his friends invites Eddie to go to the police and tell about what happened. But the secret of childhood days is even grimmer.

In the closing story «The World Behind» adult narrator at hot night can not sleep and remembers what happened to him twenty years ago, when he was a boy. His past keeps secret. The neighborhood boys teased him and mocked him. The boy began to seek refuge in the woods, where he meets a strange man who helps the boy to change his life forever.

«The Toll Collectors» tells the story of Ray McDaniel, the man of violence. For the first time in a fight in a bar, McDaniel felt a passion for violence and later went to work for bad people doing dirty jobs. For the cruelty they paid him good money. But here's the killer flees, hoping to start life over again, but go from himself is not easy, and the past catch up with McDaniel in the most unexpected way.
The best in the collection are the story with the title “8 Pounds”. It's brutal, exploding story about two best friends - and better to write no more about this story, so not to spoil the great fun.

In addition to excellent stories an advantage can be attributed, and it’s the price: it is not 8 pounds, it’s much much less.

Abolisher of Roses

Gary Fry
Abolisher of Roses

Spectral Press, 2011

Peter is a man of business, the holder of the factories and he is not interested in art. But his housewife Patricia has interest in art, recently got into a bohemian jet. While her husband makes money by covering all costs, including the whim of his wife, a woman stands at the canvas, painting a picture. When the exhibition is arranged by the forest, Peter accompanies his wife only because he does not want to seem like a bad husband. But at the exhibition, husband and wife quarrel, and Peter goes into the woods for a walk. He does not know yet where this will lead.

Good story, in which first and foremost it is worth noting an excellent style of Gary Fry and his ability to create a credible character. The author convincingly shows what type of people Peter belong to. He is a materialist, who knows the price of money, but not knowing inestimable value of the art. Fascination of his wife, whom painting has changed dramatically, he sees painting as yet another whim, and this maggot still needs to be paid.

«Abolisher of Roses» is a delicate story, not able to scare, but able to get to think about. I always enjoy reading fiction by Gary Fry and was happy to read this story. Recommended.

Best New Horror 21

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21
Edited by Stephen Jones

Robinson, 2010

Quality of anthologies of the best of the year is always determined by taste of the editor. When the book reaches the reader, the taste of the editor is divided into reader's taste, and that is determined the degree of pleasure from a collection.
Long-term anthologist Stephen Jones tends to old-fashioned horror stories, with their roots in Gothic fiction of the XIX century. Such devotion to tradition shows the inextricable link between horror literature of the past and the present, but most often harms a story. Because of its archaic story becomes predictable and suffers from disrepair style. In this book, there are several such stories. They are readable, not without some pleasure, but we should not expect some quality break from them. Fortunately, the book has some good stories, psychologically adjusted, often with an unexpected ending.

If the above-described type of a story is usually based on the type of story in story, when the protagonist in the now listens to the story occurred once, and this story contains elements of the supernatural, then in the most successful stories of the anthology narrator is here and now, and all the events happen to him in present tense.

There are not so much stylists among the authors of the collection, just two. Nicholas Royle in «The Reunion» elegantly tells the story of a meeting of medical graduates in a huge old hotel. Royle is able to twist the intrigue, sowing doubts in the head of the reader and his hero, and the final just baffles. Australian Terry Dowling writes with the French ease, too. In his story «Two Steps Along the Road» the author describes the case of modern exorcism in an exotic background. The scientist-exorcist at the beginning of the story seems to calm and know his business, but later he nearly becomes the victim of dark forces. I had read almost a year ago the story by Michael Marshall Smith «What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night», and after re-reading it gets even better. Smith brings life to all the worst fears of a man by throwing him to meet evil that has no explanations. This shocking story, however, has a bit of black humor.

Zambian miners and the spirits of Zambia become heroes of the story of Simon Kurt Unsworth «Mami Wata». Office manager flies to Africa to find out the reasons for sudden drop in production at one of the mines the company. The hero does not believe that all the fault is on otherworldly forces, while he is not facing them himself. In «Cold to the Touch» Simon Strantzas religious scientist arrives on the territory of the Far North, to find the cause of unexplained changes in climate. Two local residents help the scientist. Strantzas not quite manage to create a convincing image of the scientist who believes in God, but the story itself is full of horror and pain.

«Granny's Grinning» by Robert Shearman is perhaps more science fiction story than a fantasy one. Children receive gifts for Christmas from his parents: costumes of werewolf and zombie who literally grow into a person, making him a werewolf and a zombie, respectively. Grandmother after the death of her husband decides to celebrate Christmas with the family of her son. You will do everything for a loved one - even become a zombie. Very powerful story. Screenwriter and novelist Stephen Volk presents us unusual world in «After the Ape». This is indeed the world after the ape: King Kong was killed, and his beloved actress is suffering from the loss and stays for a week in her hotel room. Volk showed here his best skills: cinematic style and a world full of sex and violence (only this time without paranoia).

Lyrical and truly chilling story is told by Barbara Roden in «Out and Back». In an ordinary story about an abandoned place Rhoden adds unprecedented depth. Father and son King, I mean, Stephen King and Joe Hill, wrote a story «Throttle» about a gang of bikers. This is not the best story for King and for Hill, but it’s written in a fairly briskly, and the theme is suitable for the authors: the relationship between fathers and sons.

A decent collection with a handful of excellent stories.

The Suicide Collectors

David Oppegaard
The Suicide Collectors

St. Martin’s Press, 2008

After the Despair killed almost the entire population of the United States, in a small town in Florida only Norman and Pops survive. At the beginning of the novel Norman’s wife kills herself, and when the Siucide Collectors come for her body, Norman does what no one before him did: he kills with shotgun one of the collectors.
Having lost the last close person, Norman ponders the fact that situation like this can not continue more. During the five-year epidemic people stopped to see a purpose to his life and made - one by one - suicide. Mysterious Collectors has always appeared for their dead bodies and somewhere took away the dead. Remembering that one crazy man get to their town news about the scientist in Seattle, who works on a cure against the virus, Norman offers Pops to fly to Seattle on an old airplane. The old man had nothing to lose, just as Norman, and they decide to take on a dangerous flight. Fly to Seattle does not work, the plane breaks down, so that the rest of the way Norman, Pops and a girl with the name Zero goes on the ground.

In this novel there is a very good beginning and a very good end, all that is in the middle turned out not so well. Beginning, with scenes of rural life, with shocking scene of murder of the Collector, an evening drink of Norman and Pops, aptly reveals the state of the loneliness of those who are still alive and do not attempt a siucide. Norman, protecting the body of his dead wife, looks not like a superhero, but like an ordinary man who has recently been taken away all he got. Oppegaard chosen the narrator with a success. The novel is written from a third view, and the author does not allow us to look deeply into head of Norman. Something that becomes clear from his recallections, some from the phrases and actions, but in the rest of Norman - an enigma, and for himself as well.

The middle part sags: too much of cliche action, making the novel begins to seem like a novelization of the comic book. All along the way to Seattle villains are one-dimensional, their actions (and actions by Norman and co) are predictable, there is no tension, the chapters all the more boring and more boring, because you know that Norman would get up to Seattle.

The mystery of origin of Collectors, too, seems not very original, in general, even tortured, but in the end Oppegaard turn everything upside down. Before that «The Suicide Collectors» reads like dystopia mixed with horror, then in the end the novel resets all genre labels and beacons, becoming an incredibly powerful journey into the heart of darkness, when a man with essentially hollow inside is in an infinitely long tunnel full of darkness and a same emptiness. In the darkness, you forget who you are and where you are. In emptiness you see something you have never seen before.

After the death there is always a birth, and David Oppegaard managed to write about this not ideal, but a fascinating novel.

What They Hear in the Dark

Gary McMahon
What They Hear in the Dark

Spectral Press, 2011

I already wrote about the books released by Nightjar Press (damn, I reviewed all their books!), launched a series of dual release of so-called chapbooks - one book / one story. All six currently published books contained the outstanding story, picking up a very high standard for writers working in the area of dark literature. Now we have yet another British publisher, who is also engaged in production of chapbooks. The first their book came out very strong.

Gary McMahon is far from the debutant, he is the author of numerous novels, as well as several collections of short stories. «What They Hear in the Dark» is a wonderful example of how not using the straight-line methods, you can whip up the atmosphere, reducing the fantastic element in essence to a minimum.

After the violent death of their son, husband and wife moved into a new house, hoping to start anew. House, as well as their family life, is not at its best: want to repair. A place where spouses can escape from the oppressive emptiness becomes Quiet Room. In this room there is completely darkness, and most importantly - it has absolutely no sound. In this room, the sounds do not penetrate outside and extinguished all the sounds inside. The room becomes something like a drug for Rob and Becky.

This story is not a one-time reading, although I still will not reveal further the plot. McMahon feels what often overlooked by many authors of horror fiction: the worst lives always inside the person, not outside. The author describes the reliability of the person who lost the most precious thing in my life and does not know how to live.

A promising debut of a new publishing house. We will follow what Spectral Press will present us next time.

“Remember You’re a One-Ball!”

Quentin S Crisp
“Remember You’re a One-Ball!”

Chomu Press, 2010

This novel, before Chomu Press publishid it, was rejected by many publishers. This is quite understandable: the book is quite strange, moreover, it is not well written.
A story unfolding before the reader is notes of a young man named Ramsey Blake. He graduates from university, does not know where to go for as long as he is invited for an interview with director of the school where he studied. The director, while interviewing Ramsey, suggest to future teacher that he is very suitable for the vacant position: Ramsey himself a graduate of this school. So tired student begins to work in school, teaching junior classes. There he meets a girl Jacqueline. Ramsey clearly suffers from mental illness: he is afraid of people, barely controlled by his mind, besides what he says about himself: «I may have had sex, I had certainly never fucked anyone». Life with Jacqueline takes really stressful for him. In parallel, he wrote the note, where he tells the story of his classmate who was teased one-ball. This oath, one-ball, went from children's song:
«Rule Britannia!
Three monkeys up a stick.
One fell down and broke his dick.»

Of his classmate Harley Owen, of abusing him, of child abuse and worldwide conspiracy, Ramsey remembers (and read about that in the dossier passed to him by the director) because in that class, where he has learned, there is another one-ball, Norman. Both boys really have one testicle: a second one children hurt in accidents, so it should be deleted.

Soon Ramsey finds a link between the two cases and sees the mysterious behavior of the director and reading a book titled "Learning to say" yes ". He understands a lot, but could understand one thing: a place devoted to him in this story.
If the narrator can not until the last minute understand what is his role in the story of two one-ball boys, reader understands that after only three dozen pages. This however did not spoil the whole picture: the novel is already written in a very uneven way. The book is heavily skewed, as a face of the person that does not like anything. This, of course, is a multi-faceted novel: there are the memories, the memories within memories, records, excerpts of self-learning book - but it seems that the fragments are often not in own place. Some fragments (for example, Harley Owens’s dossier) would have looked good in the form of short stories, but among the clutter of other fragments the best places lose their luster. Convincingly described the history of child abuse was almost nullified by unconvincing explanation of the origin of one-balls.

The author has the ability, of course, but if you ask me, whether I liked the novel, I will just shrug my shoulders.

Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead

Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead
Ed. by Nancy Kilpatrick

Edge Publishing, 2010

Decided to make an anthology about vampires, Nancy Kilpatrick took on a very heavy burden. There are so many books about vampires that make something stand-out is almost impossible. And an author, who writes about bloodsucking creatures, puts himself in bounds: the space is narrowed, the majority of moves is known so the creator of the book or even a story about vampires still writes like in a game setting or novelization. Walls from right and left - either reader will not understand, or publisher will not publish.

Editor of «Evolve» hadn’t expanded customary bounds, too, and hence failed.
In the vast majority of the stories here there are all the same Goths teenagers who want to either become a vampire, or become victims of vampires; vampire hunters and hunters on vampires, bloodsuckers clans; rather spirits and ghosts, rather than vampires; vampires-musicians. Some stories are written better, some worse, but the style does not help the situation when the whole point anyway is reduced to the bite.
However, the book turned out not completely disastrous, if we assume that some stories were better than average. Kevin Cockle in his «Sleepless in Calgary» comes from the premise that to become a vampire can not through bite of a vampire, but only if you want yourself and drink the blood of other people. The author puts the protagonist in front of choice: a boring monotonous life of a person or free, not burdened with the work existence of a vampire. That's just is a bloodsucker worth a trust?

In Bev Vincent's «A Murder of Vampires» someone kills vampires. Nobody wants to help them, but one policeman. He takes this case. The story is not quite carried through (no explain of motives of the murderer), but the relationship between humans and vampires are written in not a trivial way.

Two of the most powerful stories were placed in the final part of the anthology. In «How Magnificent is the Universal Donor» Jerome Stueart there are virtually no vampires (at least those that originate through Stoker's Dracula). The story can be attributed to pure science fiction, and this is the definite plus. After the spread of a mysterious virus BDD, which kills 40% of carriers, to find a man with an almost perfect blood tests is nearly impossible. In the blood of people there is a virus or chemistry to treat patients. Doctors still find one person who has an ideal blood, hoping to use it to heal millions of patients. But the husband of carrier of the ideal blood (it’s a gay couple) does not trust doctors: they have forged the death certificate of his partner and does not let him see the body. This man has to pretend to be a doctor to get into the Medical Corps, where the doctors are going to remove all the blood from the kidnapped. Heroes of the story turned out some cardboard (taken as if straight out of 50's science fiction movies), but the plot did not require realistic characters.

Kevin Nunn in «The Sun Also Shines On the Wicked» tells the surprising story of how a vampire can sunbathe. To do this, he needs only a mirror and an assistant, watching over time. This story is not just a story with an inventive plot, but also a meditation on what is an eternity.

In general, the anthology is not as good as could be.

The Sixth Black Book of Horror

The Sixth Black Book of Horror
Ed. by Charles Black

Mortbury Press, 2010

This anthology, which by its title, which includes the word «black», on the one hand, warns that it is a collection of horror stories, on the other - simply announces that the book was compiled by a man named Black, has the usual suspects, which can be found in any of something worthwhile book of the horror genre, and the names that I see for the first time.

The British have no problems with ideas, but often they tend to overly straightforward horror that has one purpose - to scare a reader. Maybe someone will like it, but not me:, I'm waiting from the story something more ingenious than just talking mannequins, and serial killers, inhabiting bodies of children.
I'm not even going to mention unsuccessful stories, they're really boring and written in a very rustic manner.

First-class stories (or, with the amendment - the first class in the horror genre stories) is four there. «Traffic Stream» by Simon Kurt Unsworth could easily adorn a collection of early Stephen King. The two men agree to meet in the evening to discuss the business case. One is already waiting in the office, and the second is about to drive up. However, he can not find the way to the office and generally seems to be lost. He calls up with a partner, asks him to wait while he unsuccessfully tries to find his way. Unsworth gradually pumps the atmosphere and the horror of the driver passes to the second man. Almost flawless story where no one can help to a man gone to hell. Gary Fry in his «Keeping It in the Family» also describes the madness, but madness of one person, not the madness of the world, like was in Unsworth’s. A married couple with a child decides to go relax for the weekend and take husband's brother. The brother gets along with children and suffers from schizophrenia. Fables and fantasies of madman (he also writes short stories) he tells the boy, are being implemented in reality. In Fry's story, perhaps, Lovecraft’s spirit flies, but nonetheless it is an impressive story.

Most elegantly written stories there are RB Russell’s «An Unconventional Exorcism» and Mark Samuels’ «Keeping Your Mouth Shut». Russell's story has a sort of spoiler in the title, and it spoils the story a little. The story is family history, with spirits, spiritualism, and, indeed, exorcism. In Samuels’, the protagonist is a writer-loser. Rather, even it is hard to name him loser writer: just over a few years of his career he didn’t wrote a short story. The story is more an exercise in style: seemingly lightweight, pseudo mad, but it is, from beginning to end, impossible to put down.

Anthology, I think, killed two birds: here a reader will find stories on their own fans of straight scary horror stories and connoisseurs of fine British horror with a touch of British humor. But it would be quite enough one dead bird.

Occultation

Laird Barron
Occultation

Night Shade Books, 2010

Laird Barron (“Occultation” is only his second book) have already been christened a successor of Lovecraft and the most promising writer in the horror genre. Barron had managed to get shortlisted for genre awards, won genre awards, and published his stories in year’s best anthologies. Is this good author's collection (three stories here original to the book)? Absolutely. Is this good horror collection? Not quite sure. Here's why.

Among nine stories and novellas in the book, the most powerful seem «The Forest», "The Lagerstätte", "Mysterium Tremendum", "The Broadsword" and "- 30 -. It is rather novelettes, and this is their advantage. When the Barron has enough room to display his talent, he is much more skillful and accurate. In these five stories the author can create such a dark atmosphere that even if you read this book during the day, always seems that now it is night. These works have the same features: extremely morbid attitude of the heroes of stories with the world. If the other stories in the collection, "Occultation", "Catch Hell", "Strappado", "Six Six Six", nightmare creatures (and sometimes they are hard to be named creatures - just something ghastly) appear as if suddenly, that all horrible, inexplicable, inhuman comes from outside, creating in some sort of surprise, in the already mentioned 5 other stories the beyond has no need to come from nowhere - it was as if baked in the system of the world according to Barron. And this creates an atmosphere of hopelessness and doom much stronger. In «The Forest» cinematographer comes to the forests of New England, where discovers that his fellow scientists conduct bizarre experiments on insects. All the time, while Partridge is in camp with friends, Barron describes as a viscous drowsiness of cinematographer, from the first pages you realize that something inexplicable, daze is already embedded in the genes of the story. And to survive, you need to change the cover. In "The Lagerstätte" woman loses in an accident her husband and son. Her life becomes a phantom: she goes to a therapist, trying to extricate herself from the depths of the memory of the victims, but the memories again and again pounce on her. Son and her husband return to her, and the woman does not know who they are and who she is now. "Mysterium Tremendum" (aka Black Guide) is a book a few friends find in a shop. It describes the strange places of the district where guys live. A wild journey of two gay couples turns into a nightmare. The old man and a resident of the hotel "The Broadsword" once lost a friend in Vietnam. He was not just killed, he had a something worse - he was kidnapped. The old man does not know, but guesses that kidnappers were not human. Tormented by not being able to save a friend many years ago, the old man lives as in delirium. Up until the victim's friend comes to visit remaining in human form old man. Even those stories that seem to be less strong as the stories are well-plotted.

Barron is also a very skilled stylist, also with brisk dialogues. Sometimes speech of the characters seems fake, but nevertheless you realize that people in principle say that way.

Repetitive elements fly through most of the stories: masks, doctors, dead children, young couples, worms. Attractiveness of Barron’s prose in the fact is that he never shows the thoughts of his characters. Heroes are absolutely transparent. It is ideally suited to the type of prose the author creates.

Why as a horror collection "Occultation" does not fully work? Laird Barron is a very talented writer as a realist. His prose is palpable, accurate in detail, even realistic, if I may say that about horror. Even the beyond in his stories so firmly encased in the reality that they do not contradict each other and make a whole. Is a horror story capable now to scary someone? I do not know. Not me. Besides that, the collection has another flaw, very serious. Novelettes and stories in it are generally very similar to each other. They are plotted on the same principle. Because of that the book is hard to read from cover to cover.

After «Occultation» it will be hard period for Laird Barron. If he does not create something new, doesn’t go to another level, it will be very good, but the repetition of the old. For the writer there is nothing worse than this.

VARDOGER

STEPHEN VOLK
VARDOGER

Gray Friar Press, 2009

Young couple, Sean and Alison, comes to the Shewstone Hotel to spend the weekend in each other's arms. However, on arrival the first dislocations start: Booked room was paid for the previous weekend, as Sean and his wife were in the hotel last weekend. Solving the problem with room and with a credit card someone used without the knowledge of the owner, a husband and a wife finally overrun in the room. But the annoying things continue to hurt Sean: staff of the hotel and local guests treats to him as if they met him before and knew his habits. Sean gets angry and categorically stated that he had never been in this hotel. These little things could not spoil the rest, but the very next morning after his arrival Sean looks out of the window his wife goes by the handle with a certain man. The stranger turns around, and Sean sees that Alison goes with anyone else but with someone so similar to him that Sean understands that this is he.

Volk, not only a novelist, but also a screenwriter, makes good job with a plot, confusing it no worse than a cat playing about with a ball of yarn. Is the kidnapper of Sean`s wife his counterpart and who`ll gave a clue, we do not know until the last pages. The author managed to hold down the hero in the grip so feeling of madness climbs from the pages of novella. Sean, confused and mix-uped, can not trust anyone and he is one on one with himself. But is he alone? And who is he? He`d want to know, too.

The Norwegian word «vardoger» will not appear on the pages of the book. Sean probably does not even know such a word, but if he knew he would doubt: who of the two of them, he or his twin, are the vardoger?

Volk, succeeding in creating a nearly ideal atmospheric thriller, in the end cheats so much that in a card game for such deception he could get it in the neck. Artificial end like a patch on the new trousers slurs over the impression from the story. Nevertheless, the book asks an important question: are we who we are? And the writer answers: vardoger knows.

Black Wings

Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Fiction

Ed. by S.T. Joshi

PS Publishing, 2010

Before I start to say anything about this book, I need to make a brief but very important announcement: I have not read any of the original works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Should I be ashamed for this? Maybe. I do not know. But now this is not the case. Much more important now to understand whether you can write something worthwhile about an anthology entitled "Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Fiction" without even a clue what he wrote (excluding the fact that some of his work can be put in two words - "weird fiction"). I think it`s possible. And it may even be useful to take a virgin look to anthology consists today HFL successors.

When you read the "explanation literature” (let's call it so, that does not use the word «fanfic»), you involuntarily have to compare the original and the sequel, thus part of the attention given to how the successor uses one or another motive of firsthand, was a follower able to convey the language of master, finally, whether a pupil put the teacher at the shoulder, or could not even begin to approach. All this makes turbid a look at the literature, strictly speaking. When you armed with knowledge of Lovecraft's prose, you more watch it for the branches: what, how, whence comes in a sequel. If not armed, you judge literature directly. Of course, knowledge of the original gives more pleasure in reading, savoring more detail. But it also may spoil the impression during reading.

When I picked up this tribute compilation, I admit I thought «Black Wings», like its predecessor «Lovecraft: Undound», edited by Ellen Datlow, are perhaps the pioneers in Lovecraft-building, but I was wrong. Lovecraft-ish anthologies are out a lot, almost every year, but not all of them equally well. This one, edited by S.T. Joshi, is excellent, although not all stories included in it equally well, too. Let`s take a look at the best.

The most successful stories there are those, where the beyond, space, frightening are only in contact with daily life, measured way of life, our reality. Those stories, which the space replaces, dominates the natural way of things, have turned out inconclusive.

One of the best (if not the best at all) things in the anthology was the opening story "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" by Caitlín Kiernan. Brilliantly written, the story resembles a sophisticated mix of modernistic novel and noir with a taste of intoxicating mysteries. Add to this a silent movie and a woman, carrying death and you will receive an elegant multi-layered story. This story is unlikely to have written Lovecraft himself, but it`s clear: Kiernan today is one of the most powerful writers of not only horror but fiction in general.

Another gem in the collection is «The Broadsword» by Laird Barron. "Broadsword" is a hotel in which the protagonist of the story, old Pershing, lives. He is lonely and burdens of the past: long ago he lost his friend in the jungle, but Pershing thinks, although he does not recognize this, that could save him. But, as you know, sometimes they come back.

Barron very realistically depicts the life of Pershing. This short story is a Philip Roth-on-Lovecraft-acid. Life of the old man becomes a nightmare when he begins to hear strange sounds, but his life had not been good before. Deceased friend returns in a new guise, to talk, but life of Pershing is already endless dialogue with the deceased. «The Broadsword» is a terrible story about that the nightmare can be replaced only by another, and punishment can even passionately be wanted.

"Usurped" by William Browning Spencer begins with a young couple involved in a road accident because of an unexpected collision with a wasp swarm. From that the catastrophe in their personal life begins as well: Brad, the main character, feels that that something was wrong with him. And he no longer feels invisible connection between him and his girlfriend. This story is another excellent example of how to pack in the right proportions cosmic terror with terror of the earth.

In his «Rotterdam» Nicholas Royle, also known for its detectives, perfectly shows what happens if in action, full of claustrophobia, add Lovecraftian horror. Screenwriter Joe arrives in Holland to look for images and ideas for a new script, but life, instead of images, gives him something more terrible. Trenchant, memorable story.

"The Truth About Pickman" by Brian Stableford is a story seeming take places in a Victorian decor. Professor Thurber seeks DNA of Pickman. Confrontation in words may cost the fate of the world. Chamber story with an unexpected ending. Another good chamber story in the collection is «Tunnels» Philip Haldeman. Told by a little girl, this story is probably the most harmless of the collection.

Veteran of the horror genre Ramsey Campbell distinguished in the genre of epistolary style in his «The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash». The story is a series of letters between Cameron Nash and actually Lovecraft. Nash, initially friendly, becomes increasingly bitter and sarcastic: the stories of Lovecraft is the cause. Campbell wrote elegant pastiche, but breakthrough had failed in this story.
A truly fascinating story is the Norman Partridge one. In «Lesser Demons» sheriff and his deputy have to survive after that people began to turn into demons. The story is not so much scary as alarming. Only after reading it we will know what is more effective against the demons - the knowledge or the power.

At the end of the anthology there is another masterpiece. Michael Marshall Smith perfectly showed what should be strange - and terrible - story in the spirit of Lovecraft. In "Substitutions" mistake in the delivery of food leads to sad consequences. This is a story about the changes, about need of changes and about that changes are still inevitable. But this is the story about faithfulness, stability and impossibility of changes.

«Black Wings» is a very strong anthology, another masterpiece from PS Publishing.