The February-March 2009 issue of Black Static, Britain's premier magazine of dark fantasy and horror has an unusually rationalist approach, featuring parapsychology and anthropology, among other 'ologies'.
Stories
The Lonely Heart by Aliette de Bodard is a modern interpretation of an 18th century Chinese ghost story 'The Painted Skin.' In the shadow of the Three Bridges Dam, Chen offers sympathy to a young prostitute, unaware that the girl's pimp will exact a terrible revenge on Chen and her family. Recommended.
Like de Bodard, Tim Lees is better known for his appearances in Interzone. In 'The Plain' a university lecturer becomes obsessed with the idea that his colleagues are animals in human form, and that they are predators, while his 'weakness' in the Dean's eyes marks him as prey. Desperate to escape his fate he seeks first a transfer and then counselling, culminating in a wonderful final paragraph. Highly Recommended.
Roz Clarke's first story (indeed her first submission) is the outstanding 'Haunt-Type experience.' Dan and Megan investigate supposedly haunted sites, always without success. But Megan is haunted herself by guilt, believing that she caused her grandmother's death; with her mother now seriously ill Megan falls prey to night terrors in a dark, complex tale enriched by excerpts from The Journal of Parapsychology.
Daniel Kaysen
'The Pain of Blue Eyes' marks' Daniel Kaysen 's third appearance in five issues. Bullied schoolboy Brian meets uber-bully Richie and learns that "Life is accounting, when you think fo it. Credit columns and debit columns. Upsides and downsides." (p.36) Brian exchanges days of safety for a few moments of greater pain, but even that trade-off changes when they meet Anna Lee. Highly Recommended.
In Al Robertson's 'The Changeling' a soldier returns from 'peacekeeping' duties in the desert to his bride and her emotionally disturbed twin sister, both of whom encountered the Old Friends, (or Fair Folk as they're called later in the story) as children. When Elizabeth can no longer cope with Robert's cruelty, she takes them back with her to live with the Old Friends. Robert is determined to get them back in a fine contemporary re-working of a classic fantasy trope. Recommended.
Stephen Volk
Sadly, Stephen Volk's 'Fear' is unable to maintain the overall standard, although it's still competent enough. But there was a nagging feeling that there was something missing; on repeated readings it manifests as the author's witholding crucial details, in this story of a samurai dispatched to a remote Japanese village to see off an outbreak of ghosts.
For those disappointed by Volk's fiction, his Electric Darkness column is as interesting as usual, and his thoughts on brevity perhaps offer illumination on why his story won't work for everyone.
In other columns, Tony Lee charts the ever-dimishing returns of movie trilogies like The Mummy Trilogy as well as covering Eden Lake, the latest Resident Evil offering and other -more obscure-- offerings, Christopher Fowler writes of his memoir, Paperboy, Mike O'Driscoll lays down a challenge to contemporary horror writers and Peter Tennant profiles Tony Richards and Shaun Hutson, all wrapped within a marvellously creepy David Gentry cover.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
