The latest issue of Britain’s leading horror magazine sees the debut collaboration between Paul Meloy and Sarah Pinborough, the return of Ray Cluley, and three new writers appear, one of them the winner of last year’s Bram Stoker award. There are also the usual contributions from Christopher Fowler and the other columnists, and book and DVD reviews from Peter Tennant and Tony Lee.
Electric Darkness
As usual the fiction is bookended by opinion and reviews, starting with Stephen Volk’s ‘Electric Darkness’ column, in which he mourns the demise of the BBC, and the death of a childhood dream.
The BBC also features in Mike O’Driscoll’s ‘Night’s Plutonian Shore,’ with Mark Gatiss’ History of Horror under the microscope, and his own reluctance to revisit once-loved films as a more adult viewer.
Meanwhile, Christopher Fowler’s ‘White Noise’ starts with the appeal of populist shows versus the more limited appeal of high concept media. As usual, all three columns offer interesting sidebars to the fiction.
Paul Meloy
‘The Compartments of Hell’ marks the first collaboration by Paul Meloy & Sarah Pinborough, and an accomplished, if grisly one it is too. It’s the end of the world. We have a post-apocalyptic scenario. Who’s survived? It’s Roy Draper. So, it looks like it’s going to be from his point of view, I’m afraid. Was it biological? Chemical? Aliens? We might never know, folks, because Roy was out of his face on crack. As the authors warn, the reader never learns exactly what’s caused the apocalypse, but understanding is secondary to the experience as Roy seeks to survive his body’s imminent explosion and the pseudo-scientific cruelty of the local dealer’s ‘tests.’ Recommended.
‘Going Home, Ugly Stick in Hand’ by Nate Southard takes (and subverts, just as the previous story does) a classic horror trope:You start in the sporting goods store, testing one wooden bat after another until you find one that feels good and sturdy. Heavy. A few practice swings tell you the weight is just fine. Some electrical tape wrapped around the neck, and it’ll hold up good. At least for a few good whacks. If the Meloy/ Pinborough plays with zombies and the apocalypse, then the Southard takes as its source material The Thing In The Woods. Dawson is a town in thrall to the creature, but one man ran away. Now he has to return and confront in, armed only with a baseball bat which he’s hammered nails into. Short and bitter and elegant. Highly Recommended.
Bram Stoker Award
‘The Covered Doll’ by Norman Prentiss marks the debut of the Bram Stoker award winning author of ‘In the Porches of My Ears,’ with the creepy story of Cheryl Anne and her doll Miss Rose: Her father told her it was an antique doll that rich folk would put on a fancy shelf behind glass. The doll’s body was a soft pillow shaped like a baby, and the hands were made of porcelain that poked out beneath frilly sleeves. Prentiss perfectly captures the slightly skewed world-view of the young child, as it gradually becomes clear that all is not well in one little girl’s summer vacation. Recommended.
‘The Wounded House’ by Barbara A. Barnett is another debut appearance, but a much more classically inclined one. Even if I’d had more than a thirteen-year-old’s ambition at the time, the extra effort would have been a waste; the house held onto everything. And I had done far worse to wound it over the years, ramming toy cars into walls that had been slathered with a grandchild’s share of snot and crayon. On one of her irregular sleepovers with her grandmother, teenager Maggie sees what she realizes is the ghost of her grandfather. Talking to her grandmother the next day, Maggie begins to realize that the house is less to be feared than pitied, and so begins the process of understanding, perhaps even healing. Outstanding.
Ray Cluley
You’ll notice these records have no dates. I don’t think anyone really knows what the year is these days anyway. The last one I remember is 2020. Everyone remembers 2020, but my point is I didn’t keep track after. Why bother? I only write this because of what happened recently...
Most horror takes place in the past, perhaps because people prefer to look back to the otherwise safe and comfortable, or in the present, whereby the genre can be used as social commentary. Like Mercurio D. Rivera’s ‘Tu Sufrimiento Shall protect Us,’ Ray Cluley’s ‘At Night, When the Demons Come’ mixes horror with SF, and does it very, very well. The demons are apocryphally always female, so men have turned on women using the demons as an excuse to kidnap, imprison and torture women. The ending is surprising, saddening and moving. ‘At Night, When the Demons Come’ is one of the year’s best stories, eclipsing even his ‘Beachcombing’ in the previous issue.
Reviews
The books reviewed in Peter Tennant’s ‘Case Notes’ this issue include a re-issue of Stephen King’s One for the Road, a heavily illustrated 1977 short story; the new Anita Black novel, Flirt, from Laurel K. Hamilton; a re-issue of Douglas Clegg’s acclaimed 1991 novel, Neverland; The House of Canted Steps, the debut novel from Gary Fry, whose short story collections have been gracing the British horror scene for some years now, and a collection by Simon Kurt Unsworth, a Black Static regular;
Tony Lee’s ‘Blood Spectrum’ reviews DVD/Blu-ray releases of films that most outside hardcore horror buffs will never have heard of, together with some cult classics such as Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. The pick of the releases seem to be the original 1974 version of Black Christmas and Val Lewton’s 1943 RKO production of The Seventh Victim.
Cover art this issue is a cropped image from Darren Winter's illustration for 'At Night, When the Demons Come' by Ray Cluley.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
