The April-May issue of Britain's leading magazine of Horror and Dark Fantasy is the first in full colour, and looks fantastic. Editor Andy Cox and team have provided the usual mix of excellent stories and features.
Tim Casson
Every so often, Black Static runs against type by printing a story that allows the protagonist (and therefore the reader) some sense of hope, or of redemption. Perhaps it's only to soften the reader up so that the return to darkness inflicts even more of a hammer blow.
But whatever the reason, Tim Casson's 'The Overseer' is such a story. It opens months or years after Darius has lost his fortune, accidentally killed his father, and lost much of his memory in the process. Father is a tyrannical, heartless monster who beat his son for feeding the birds and sacked the servant who gave the boy the food. When Darius ends up at a remote Northern guesthouse that's closer to a workhouse, he takes the only work available, cleaning a local factory, which is where his path to redemption begins.
The story isn't perfect; the overseer's mask is a little too reminiscent of The Empty Child, and the moment where Father explains all is somewhat clunky, but Casson is such a skilled wordsmith that he manages to carry the story off, anyway. Illustrated by Ben Baldwin, it's Recommended.
By contrast, M.G. Preston's cover art story (which is by Chris Nurse) is much more standard horror fare. At a remote station in the far north of Norway, Krog is staring to hear a low humming sound coming from the Report Room. The plot of 'Extreme Latitude' has been done so often before that there should be nothing new to it, and yet by invoking cryogenics and electromagnetism, Preston manages to give the story an air of verisimilitude.
Mike O'Driscoll
In 'One Last Wild Waltz,' regular columnist Mike O'Driscoll takes the reader to familiar territory for the magazine's regular readers, the decaying townscapes of South Wales. Ceri Edevane has returned home from the sunshine to bury his older brother, only to find that the dead will not give him up so easily. Cruel older brother Frank and Ceri's lost love Alison are as well drawn as the narrator, and the story lingers well after the final sentence. Highly Recommended.
In Alison J. Littelwood's 'The Empty Spaces,' two old men live out their days bound by a shared guilt over the fate of their wives, two sisters who went off to a hen party and never returned. When Laurie starts to see Marilyn Monroe in their living room, the doctor diagnoses Charles Bonnet Syndrome. But the reality, as expected, is both more and less straightforward.
After the coldness of winter that blows through the stories, it's a relief to venture south to the warmth of Andalucia, where a grieving father waits for the return of his little girl in Lynda E. Rucker's 'The Moon Will Look Strange.' But alchemist Yarrow who helped the father has a darker purpose in mind. Although the story feels like watching a back-adaptation of Roeg's Don't Look Now, the ending is very, very different, and Rucker's characterization is strong enough to carry it off. Highly Recommended.
Features
The Campaign For Real Fear and a new King Collection in News, Stephen Volk musing on how to survive depression as a writer, Mike O'Driscoll profiling James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy and Christopher Fowler on Horror films beyond Teen Stupid.
Tony Lee reviews new DVD/Blu-ray releases, including The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, 2012, and The Descent Part 2.
Case Notes by Peter Tennant
Tennant interviews Sarah Pinborough and reviews Feeding Ground and A Matter of Blood, as well as collections and novels by Black Static's Cody Goodfellow, James Cooper, Gary Fry, and John Ajvide Lindqvist's zombie follow up to Let The Right One In.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
