The Doll Collection, ed. Ellen Datlow

The Doll Collection

Edited by Ellen Datlow

Tor Books, 2015

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Well known, distinguished American editor Ellen Datlow continues to delight horror fans with juicy anthologies of excellent short fiction featuring either reprints or, as in this case, brand new, original tales.

“The Doll Collection” is a theme anthology assembling seventeen stories where dolls (of any size, type and nature) represent the backbone of the plot. Needless to say the average quality of the material is extremely good, with about 50%of the stories reaching a level of excellence which makes them worth to be included in any forthcoming “Year’s Best”. A challenge for Datlow herself, as the editor of one of the most important and successful “Best Horror of the Year” series.

Then please take note of the following titles and see if my prediction is well founded or not.

“Skin and Bone” by Tim Lebbon is a masterful tale of Arctic horror where the discovery of two doll- like corpses in the snow reveals the hidden truth about the fate of the expedition, while “Heroes and Villains” by Stephen Gallagher is a creepy yarn featuring a too lively ventriloquist’s dummy recalling a past tragedy brought about by a fire.

In the enigmatic tale of witchcraft, “Gaze” by Gemma Files, we get acquainted with a long dead woman with eyes of different colours and in the terrifying “Ambitious Boys Like You” by Richard Kadrey, two young burglars breaking into an old man’s house end up facing a veritable nightmare.

Stephen Graham Jones contributes the offbeat but fascinating and disquieting “Daniel’s Theory About Dolls”, probing the dark secrets of a family where two brothers, living with the constant memory of an unborn little sister, have an unhealthy obsession with dolls.

Genevieve Valentine’s delicious “Visit Lovely Cornwall on the Western Railway Line” depicts with a gentle, exquisite touch the train journey of a girl travelling alone.

Lucy Sussex provides the very enjoyable “Miss Sibyl-Cassandra”, revolving around a fortune-telling doll and her ambiguous but effective previsions.

John Langan exhibits his great storytelling ability in “Homemade Monsters” where childhood memories about the disappearance of a kid during an unusual seismic event are linked to a makeshift but powerful Godzilla figurine.

Other contributors are: Joyce Carol Oates, Pat Cadigan,Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Miranda Siemienowicz, Mary Robinette Kowal, Richard Bowes,Veronica Schanoes and Jeffrey Ford.

Needless to add, a highly recommended book.

- review by Mario Guslandi

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By Mark Samuels

Egaeus Press 2014,

Hardcover, 127 pages

A review by Mario Guslandi

The latest short story collection by British author Mark Samuels ,aptly entitled “Written in Darkness” , confirms his ability to unearth the dark side of the universe as well as the dark depths of the human soul. Darkness is everywhere, in the failing economy, in the breakdown of our place of work, in the emptiness of the daily routine, in the loneliness of our life, in the nature of our secret feelings. That is the common ground of the nine stories assembled in a slim, elegant volume published by Egaeus Press.

Obviously, not all the stories have the same intensity and some are more accomplished than others. The general tone may sound a bit depressing, so I advise you to savour each tale in separate reading sessions rather than being engulfed in a spiral of pessimism and melancholy : you will enjoy the stories more.

In my opinion the best stories are : “A Call to Greatness” a Kafkaesque piece featuring a stern Baron hopelessly fighting against the Bolsheviks, “My Heretical Existence”, a short, sinister tale about an elusive zone of an European city where a different, dangerous reality is lurking and “Outside Interference”, a puzzling example of urban horror involving the employees of a corporate firm located in a building,the basement of which conceals deadly secrets.

My favourite ,however, is a very traditional horror story, the deliciously creepy “Alistair” where a little boy becomes privy of the dark mysteries surrounding an old mansion and the adjacent cemetery.

- review by Mario Guslandi

by Greig Beck

Momentum Books

(review by Geoff Brown)

Military horror. That’s what I like. Hell, that’s what I tend to publish through my own press. The term is pretty self-explanatory. Guys with guns shooting at things that shouldn’t exist. When you put it that way, it seems pretty basic, but it’s hard to pull off one of these tales without losing the reader. Things get too hard to believe, and then bam, the reader rolls their eyes and you’re lost them.

Australian writer of military horror Greig Beck manages to keep the reader engaged throughout his books, and I can tell you, that is hard considering some of the creatures that act as the villain in them. I’ve read Beck’s books since I first discovered This Green Hell, the third book in the Alex Hunter series, his most well-known works. As soon as I read that one, I raced off and found copies of the two earlier books, and then waited (somewhat impatiently) for the follow-ups. Since then, he’s written two more in that series, and a number of other books, all as exciting and thrilling as I had come to expect.

Book of the Dead is not an Alex Hunter novel. It follows a side character from that series, paleolinguist Matt Kearns, on a mission that even Hunter may not have survived. From the depths of history, word has carried through the ages of elder gods and of a time they will rise up. Many of the prophets of these events have been called mad, and to anyone listening to what they try to warn us of, they surely do seem insane. Yet… in this madness lies the seeds of a dangerous truth.

In our age, massive sinkholes begin to open across the globe, dragging anything on the surface down into the depths. When authorities investigate, they find no trace of any living thing. No bodies, no forensics… nothing. When these sinkholes start to get bigger and bigger, there are also reports of ‘things’ rising from the depths. As more and more people start to disappear, the government is forced to act. They recruit a team of specialists which includes Professor Kearns. The team explores one of the sinkholes, and find evidence to show that the ancient, elder gods are once again ready to rise from their ancient slumber. Their aim? Another catastrophic extinction event, just like the last few times they have risen. Life on Earth would cease to exist.

The team of military and civilian experts find themselves in a race against time, and against an unknown but powerful and ruthless enemy, to find the Book of the Dead before it’s too late.

Beck takes a man-made mythos, that of Cthulhu and the pantheon of elder gods he leads, and brings it blazing into the Twenty-First Century. Things that have only caused fear in legend and literature are now rising up to destroy the world. The characters are believable, the pacing is frantic, and the plotline is so incredible only a few authors could make it seem so believable. Beck is one of those authors. He has really hit his stride with Book of the Dead, and I cannot wait to see what he does with his next book.

- review by Geoff Brown

By Angela Slatter

Tartarus Press 2014, Hardcover, 277 pages

Award-winning Australian author Angela Slatter returns with yet another collection of fantastic stories where she can display once again her fertile and powerful imagination, her extraordinary ability as a storyteller, endowed with an elegant narrative style and a remarkable sensitivity to the mysteries of the universe and the secrets of the human heart.

The present volume, enhanced by a bunch of delightful illustrations by Australian artist Kathleen Jennings, assembles thirteen tales of dark fantasy which will please especially the sophisticated readers fond of well written,stylish fiction.

The gorgeous, British Fantasy Award-winning “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” masterfully blends death and lust within the frame of the professional duties of a dismal job.

“The Maiden in the Ice” is an extraordinary, enticing fairy tale for adults, where the hidden secrets of a little village are disclosed after the retrieval of a girl trapped in the ice.

The delicious “The Badger’s Bride” features a girl whose task is to copy a mysterious, ancient book, while the vivid “By My Voice I Shall Be Known” depicts a case of unfaithful love and of a terrible vengeance obtained by means of black magic.

In the atypical vampire story “The Night Stairs” a young girl seeks revenge on a couple of undead but falls victim of an unexpected outcome, while in the fascinating “Terrible as an Army with Banners” we make the acquaintance of a weird sisterhood devoted to save books and knowledge.

Among so many excellent story my favourite,perhaps, is “The Burnt Moon” , a superbly crafted, disturbing story of withcraft,love and fire, a standing example of Slatter’s enormous talent.

Highly recommended.

- review by Mario Guslandi

Thirteen O’Clock will always have a third party contributor review the Contributing Editors’ work. Such reviews will be unedited (aside from standard corrections to typos and grammar), posted in full (be they negative or positive), and will always be accompanied by full disclosure of Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan’s place at Thirteen O’Clock. At no point will Baxter, Dowker or McKiernan review their own work.

Last Year, When We Were Young
by Andrew J McKiernan

Satalyte Publishing (www.satalyte.com.au)

Paperback: ISBN 978-0-9925095-2-1
E-book: ISBN 978-0-9925095-3-8

Review by Greg Chapman

Andrew J. McKiernan’s collection, Last Year When We Were Young, is proof yet again of the incredible writing talent that can be found in Australia and further still, proof that horror can have a meaningful voice that goes well beyond blood and gore.

Whether it is a story about a secretary taking phone messages from the dead, a group of clowns trying to avoid forced conscription in a travelling circus, or astronauts encountering cosmic monsters in the depths of space, the impossible in McKiernan’s stories never fails to engage because the stories always orbit characters that are quantifiably human.

McKiernan’s deft hand with prose is also addictive, with each turn of phrase sweeping the reader away from reality. Although many of his supernatural tales exude mysterious atmosphere, demonic forces or faith, I think the stories where the uncanny takes a back seat are where he really shines. Here the horror is less inexplicable, but no less haunting. The tales, White Lines, White Crosses, The Memory of Water, Calliope: A Steam Romance, and the title story being prime examples.

Overall, the collection is engrossing, every story leaving the reader with sensations of loss, hope, melancholy, repulsion and joy. It’s not often that a writer can convey such a broad section of emotions, but this is what makes collections so worthwhile – and enjoyable.

I recall reading one of Andrew’s Facebook posts some time ago about how he was finding it a real challenge to select the stories for Last Year, When We Were Young, but I can safely say that he and Satalyte Publishing have put together a wonderful treasury of fiction that is well worth any reader’s time, horror fan or no.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Year-When-Were-Young/dp/0992509521/
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22523234-last-year-when-we-were-young

Review by Greg Chapman (http://www.darkscrybe.blogspot.com/)

NOTE: I wrote this article (which is now incorporated as Chapter 20 of In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, 3rd Edition) on New Orleans as an homage to one of my favorite cities, one still fresh in my mind and heart after a long-postponed revisit there as an invitee to the Vampire Film Festival’s Midsummer Nightmare last year.

All of the photos in this article are my own, except for the portrait of the Compte de St. Germain and the two pictures otherwise credited. Most of the text is a compendium of others’ words and research. With apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently left out, my online research for this chapter led me to articles from hubpages.com; Kalila K. Smith (whose Vampire Tour I can recommend from personal experience—see http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Kalila-Smith/178024410); New Orleans Ghosts.com; GO NOLA; Brian Harrison; Haunted Shreveport Bossier.com; and Frommers.com. I’ve borrowed freely from all of these sources and recommend them highly to those who would like to delve more deeply into the secrets of this unique city.

If you have ever walked the dark, rainy streets of the French Quarter at night, you have seen the voodoo shops selling their gris-gris and John-the-Conqueror Root. You’ve seen the old woman in the French Market whose pointing finger foretells your death And if you know the right person to ask and you ask in the right way, you’ll be shown to the vampire clubs.

I’ve been in those clubs and seen people who believe with their heart, body, and soul that they are real, live vampires. And some of the people in those clubs are scared to death of a select group of vampires who have only appeared there a few times, and always in the darkest of night. By day, of course, the vampire clubs are closed and locked or turned back into regular tourist bars . . .
–Crazy Horse’s Ghost

St. Louis Cemetery (Photo Courtesy of David Yeagley)

Like the Spanish Moss that drapes the trees of the nearby bayous, mystery and the occult have shrouded New Orleans since its birth. For hundreds of years, families there have practiced a custom called “sitting up with the dead.” When a family member dies, a relative or close family friend stays with the body until it is placed into one of New Orleans’ above-ground tombs or is buried. The body is never left unattended.

There are many reasons given for this practice today—the Old Families will tell you it’s simply respect for the dead—but this tradition actually dates back to the vampire folklore of medieval Eastern Europe. First, the mirrors are covered and the clocks are stopped. While sitting up with the deceased, the friend or family member is really watching for signs of paranormal activity, e.g.,. if a cat is seen to jump over, walk across, or stand on top of the coffin; if a dog barks or growls at the coffin; or if a horse shies from it, these are all signs of impending vampirism. Likewise, if a shadow falls over the corpse. At that point, steps are taken to prevent the corpse from returning from the dead.

Ways to stop a corpse—especially a suicide—from becoming a vampire include burying it face down at a crossroads. Often family members place a sickle around the neck to keep the corpse from sitting up; stuff the mouth with garlic and sew it closed; or mutilate the body, usually by decapitating the head and placing it at the bottom of the feet. But the most common remedy for impending vampirism is to drive a stake into the corpse, decapitate it, then burn the body to ashes. This method is still believed to be the only sure way to truly destroy the undead.

THE CASKET GIRLS

Ask any member of the Old Families who the first vampires to come to New Orleans were, and they’ll tell you the same: it was the Casket Girls.

Much of the population that found their way to New Orleans in the early 1700s were unwelcome anywhere else: deported galley slaves and felons, trappers, gold-hunters and petty criminals. People who wouldn’t be noticed if they went missing.

Sources vary on the specifics, but the basic story is that the city’s founders asked French officials to send over prospective wives for the colonists. They obliged and after months at sea these young girls showed up on the docks, pale and gaunt, bearing only as many belongings as would fit inside a wooden chest or “casquette,” which appears to have been the 18th Century equivalent of an overnight bag. They were taken to the Ursuline Convent, which still stands today, where the girls were said to have resided until the nuns could arrange for marriages.

Some accounts say they were fine young women, virgins brought up in church-run orphanages; some say they were prostitutes. But there are many who swear they were vampires, vampires who continue to rise from their “casquettes” on the third floor to break through the windows and hurricane shutters—windows and shutters that always seem to need repairing after the calmest of nights—to feed upon the transient crowds that for centuries have filled the darkened alleys of the Quarter.

Finally in 1978, after centuries of rumors and stories, two amateur reporters demanded to see these coffins. The archbishop, of course, denied them entrance. Undaunted, the next night the two men climbed over the convent wall with their recording equipment and set up their workstation below. The next morning, the reporters’ equipment was found strewn about the lawn. And on the front porch steps of the convent were found the almost decapitated bodies of these two men. Eighty percent of their blood was gone. To this day, no one has ever solved the murders.

LE COMPTE DE ST. GERMAIN

If there is one person who encapsulates the lure and the danger of the vampire, it is the Compte de Saint Germain. Making his first appearance in the court of Louis XV of France, the Comte de Saint Germain endeared himself to the aristocrats by regaling them with events from his past. An alchemist by trade, he claimed to be in possession of the “elixir of life,” and to be more than 6,000 years old.

At other times the Count claimed to be a son of Francis II Rakoczi, the Prince of Transylvania, born in 1712, possibly legitimate, possibly by Duchess Violante Beatrice of Bavaria. This would account for his wealth and fine education. It also explains why kings would accept him as one of their own.

Contemporary accounts from the time record that despite being in the midst of many banquets and invited to the finest homes, he never ate at any of them. He would, however, sip at a glass of red wine. After a few years, he left the French court and moved to Germany, where he was reported to have died. However, people continued to spot him throughout Europe even after his death.

In 1903, a handsome and charismatic young Frenchman named Jacques Saint Germain, claiming to be a descendant of the Compte, arrived in New Orleans, taking residence in a house at the corner of Royal and Ursuline streets. Possessing an eye for beauty, Jacques was seen on the streets of the French Quarter with a different young woman on his arm every evening. His excursions came to an abrupt end one cold December night, when a woman’s piercing scream was heard coming from Jacques’ French Quarter home. The scream was quickly followed by a woman who flung herself from the second story window to land on the street below. As bystanders rushed to her aid, she told them how Saint Germain attacked and bit her, and that she jumped out of the window to escape. She died later that evening at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

By the time the New Orleans police kicked in the door of Saint Germain’s home, he had escaped. However, what they did find was disturbing enough. The stench of death greeted the nostrils of the policemen, who found not only large bloodstains in the wooden flooring, but even wine bottles filled with human blood. The house was declared a crime scene and sealed off. From that evil night to the present day, no one has lived in that home in the French Quarter. It is private property and all taxes have been paid to date, but no one has been able to contact the present owner or owners. The only barriers between the valuable French Quarter property and the outside world are the boarded-up balcony windows and a small lock on the door. Whispers of Jacques sightings are prevalent, and people still report seeing him in the French Quarter. Could it be the enigmatic Compte checking up on his property?

ANNE RICE AND THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES

Lafayette Cemetery (Photo Courtesy of Phil Orgeron)

There is no one who has done more to bring the vampire into the New Age than Anne Rice, born and bred in New Orleans, with her novel Interview with the Vampire and the films and books that followed. Those who have profited mightily from the popularity of True Blood and Twilight owe her a great debt.

The ultra-retro St. Charles Avenue Streetcar will take you close to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, the gravesite of Louis de Pointe du Lac’s (Lestat’s companion and fellow vampire in Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles) wife and child and where Louis was turned into a vampire by Lestat.

The Styrofoam tomb from the film Interview with the Vampire is gone now, but you can easily find the site where it stood, the wide empty space in the cemetery nearest the corner of Coliseum and Sixth Street.

During the filming of Interview with the Vampire, the blocks between 700 and 900 Royal Street in the French Quarter were used for exterior shots of the home of the vampires Louis, Lestat, and Claudia, trapped for all time with an adult mind in the body of a six-year-old girl. In fact, the streets there and around Jackson Square were covered in mud for the movie as they had been in the 1860s when the scenes took place.

The perfectly preserved Gallier House at 1132 Royal Street was Anne Rice’s inspiration for the vampires’ house, and very close to that is the Lalaurie House, at 1140 Royal Street. Delphine Lalaurie, portrayed by Kathy Bates in American Horror Story: Coven, was a real person who lived in that house and was indeed said to have tortured and bathed in the blood of her slaves—even the blood of a slave girl’s newborn baby—to preserve her youth. She was never seen again in New Orleans after an angry mob partially destroyed her home on April 10, 1834. There is a scene in American Horror Story where Delphine escapes from the coven’s mansion and sits dejectedly on the curb in front of her old home. A private residence now, some locals still swear that the Lalaurie House is haunted, and that the clanking of chains can be heard through the night.

Built in 1789, Madame John’s Legacy (632 Dumaine Street) is the oldest surviving residence in the Mississippi Valley. In Interview with the Vampire, caskets are shown being carried out of the house as Louis’ (Brad Pitt) voice-over describes the handiwork of his housemates Claudia and Lestat: “An infant prodigy with a lust for killing that matched his own. Together, they finished off whole families.”

RESOURCES FOR VAMPIRES

As a service to this most vampire-friendly city (http://www.vampirewebsite.net/vampirefriendlycities.html), the New Orleans Vampire Association describes itself as a “non-profit organization comprised of self-identifying vampires representing an alliance between Houses within the Community in the Greater New Orleans Area. Founded in 2005, NOVA was established to provide support and structure for the vampire and other-kin subcultures and to provide educational and charitable outreach to those in need.”

Their Web site also points out that “every year since Hurricane Katrina, the founding members of NOVA have taken food out on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to those who are hungry and homeless.” (See http://www.neworleansvampireassociation.org/index.html.)

FANGTASIA, named with permission from HBO after the club featured in True Blood, is an affiliation of New Orleans-based musicians and film and TV producers who for three years have presented a multi-day vampire-centric event of the same name, the first two years at 1135 Decatur and last year at the Howlin’ Wolf. You can follow their plans and exploits via their blog at http://www.fangtasiaevent.com/fangtasia-blog/.

Next year FANGTASIA hopes to create “the South by Southwest of Global Vampire Culture” at an as yet undisclosed location in Greater New Orleans. As they describe it:

Moving beyond this third consecutive year, FANGTASIA is building a broader international draw that will bring fans to not only party at club nights, but also attend conferences, elegant fashion shows, film & TV screenings, celebrity events as well as an international Halloween/party gear buyers’ market.

Participants will experience gourmet sensations, explore our sensuous city and haunted bayous… as well as epically celebrate the Global Vampire Culture in all its sultry, seductive, diverse and darkly divine incarnations. Additionally, FANGTASIA is strategically poised months prior to Halloween to provide corporate sponsors and vendors a perfect window to connect with their core demographic. This also allows FANGTASIA to actively support and promote existing major Halloween events in New Orleans and beyond.

On the subject of vampiric Halloween events, for 25 years the Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club (http://arvlfc.com/index.html) has presented the annual Vampire Ball (http://arvlfc.com/ball.html), now as part of the four-day UndeadCon (http://arvlfc.com/undeadcon.html) at the end of October; and on the weekend nearest Halloween Night (for example, November 1, 2014) the Endless Night Festival and New Orleans Vampire Ball takes place at the House of Blues (http://www.endlessnight.com/venue/).

The Boutique du Vampyre (http://feelthebite.com/boutique2013.html) is a moveable (literally—they’re known to change locations on short notice) feast of vampire and Goth-related odds and ends, many of them locally made. There are books as well—you may even find a copy of In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide if they’re not sold out. Their Web site itself holds a surprise treat: a link to a free video cast of the first two seasons of Vampire Mob (http://vampiremob.com/Vampire_Mob/Vampire_Mob.html), which is just what the title implies.

Finally, no visit to the Crescent City would be complete, for Vampire and Mortal alike, without a taste of absinthe (http://www.piratesalleycafe.com/absinthe.html), or even more than a taste. There is a ritual to the preparation and serving of absinthe that should not be missed; one of the sites that does this authentically is the Pirates Alley Café and Absinthe House at 622 Pirates Alley.

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Steven P. Unger is the best-selling author of In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, 3rd Edition, published and distributed by World Audience Publishers (http://www.amazon.com/Footsteps-Dracula-Personal-Journey-Travel/dp/1935444530/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262485478&sr=1-1). The 3rd Edition of In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide, available now, includes:

• References, Web Links, and Costs Updated to March 2014
• The First Review of Dracula Ever Written, Published in the Manchester Guardian on June 15, 1897
• A New Section on Bram Stoker’s Dublin
• A Rare Photo of a Wolf-Dragon, the Original Source of the Name “Dracula,” Carved Within the Ruins of a Prehistoric Dacian Temple in Transylvania
• A Brand New Chapter: “A Vampire’s Guide to New Orleans”
• And much, much more!

In the Footsteps of Dracula can be ordered from your local bookstore or online.

Thirteen O’Clock will always have a third party contributor review the Contributing Editors’ work. Such reviews will be unedited (aside from standard corrections to typos and grammar), posted in full (be they negative or positive), and will always be accompanied by full disclosure of Baxter, Dowker, and McKiernan’s place at Thirteen O’Clock. At no point will Baxter, Dowker or McKiernan review their own work.

Bound by Alan Baxter

Bound by Alan Baxter

Harper Voyager 2014

review by Geoff Brown

The first Alex Caine book, Bound, is the inaugural mass market urban fantasy release by Alan Baxter through Harper Voyager, the sci-fi/fantasy imprint of Harper Collins. Urban fantasy describes a work that is set primarily in the real world and contains aspects of fantasy. I received a proof copy of this fantastic book well prior to the release date in June, and read it in three sittings. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to read this.

Bound tells the story of illegal underground fighter Alex Caine, who has certain abilities that seem magical. Alex can see people’s physical intent prior to their actions, allowing him to react in combat in a way almost impossible. Baxter is a highly-skilled martial artist himself, and writes the fight scenes in ways that are both visceral and realistic. I had no trouble visualising the combat within the book as it was happening, something I always judge in any book that features strong combat scenes. Believable yet exciting fighting is very hard to pull off, and Baxter does it well.

As Bound opens, Caine is approached by a man claiming that magic is real, and that Caine himself is a natural user of magic. What starts as a casual and unwanted job reading a magic text turns into an epic journey of discovery and conflict for Caine. Written as a classic Hero’s Journey, Caine at first refuses the call, yet finds himself unable to avoid the tests thrown at him by the antagonist. The revelation of the mysteries that flow throughout Bound are timed perfectly to maintain and escalate the reader’s interest, keeping up a pace that encourages rather than bores or overstimulates. The plot moves along nicely, and ticks all the boxes. The character development is great, and the overall charm of Bound shines through without being lost in the writing itself.

The first part of the book follows Alex as he is introduced to the real magic inherent in the world around him, and then the antagonist is introduced and the real action kicks in. That’s not to say the first part is without action; that’s simply not the case. But after the main foe makes his appearance, the action level kicks up even more than up to that point. Fantastic creatures appear, all hellbent on taking out Alex, and it is up to him and his, at times unwanted, mentor and companion to survive and follow the clues to the climax. By the end, all the subplots are wound up nicely, but I did think the ending came on a little fast once it hit. There is certainly room in the ending and the mythos for further Alex Caine adventures, and the clue that these are forthcoming is the text ‘Alex Cain #1’ that is blindingly obvious on the cover of the Advance Review Copy I was gifted by the publisher. To tell you the truth, I can’t wait to see where this exciting and compelling new series will go from here.

***

Geoff Brown is an Australian writer raised in Melbourne’s gritty Western Suburbs. He writes as GN Braun. He is a trained nurse, and holds a Cert. IV in Professional Writing and Editing, as well as a Dip. Arts (Professional Writing and Editing). He writes fiction across various genres, and is the author of many published short stories. He has had numerous articles published in newspapers, both regional and metropolitan. He is the past president of the Australian Horror Writers Association and past director of the Australian Shadows Awards. He is an editor and columnist for UK site This is Horror, and the guest editor for Midnight Echo #9. His memoir, Hammered, was released in early 2012 by Legumeman Books. He is the owner of Cohesion Editing and Proofreading, and has now opened a publishing house, Cohesion Press.

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by Steve Rasnic Tem

Swan River Press 2014

First Edition Hardcover, 165 pages

A review by Mario Guslandi

Here’s a short story collection by an American writer, published by a small British imprint, reviewed by an Italian reviewer and posted on an Australian website. Globalization has reached the world of dark fiction and this is a good thing because the present volume deserves to be enjoyed by as many readers as possible.

Steve Tem is a very prolific author of  “quiet” horror in its various shades, probing the secrets hidden in the human heart, which is the very source of any real horror. In his work you’ll hardly find monsters, gore and violence; you’ll find the sad, disquieting side of the horrors that affect our daily  life.

This particular collection is devoted to ghost stories, but, again, you won’t find here howling spectres lurking in old castles, but disturbing shadows lingering at the corners of our towns and cities. And most of those shadows are images of a past that still haunt our souls.

Among the fifteen tales assembled in the book, most are really outstanding examples of how good Tem is at his best.

The title story “Here with the Shadows” is a delicate, insightful piece where an old man lives his last days surrounded by a crowd of shadows, the shadows of the dead, while “A House by the Ocean” is a mesmerizing ghost story full of sorrow and despair, featuring two sisters separated for too long.

In the gentle  “G is for Ghost”, the main character is the ghost of a child, while in the subtly unnerving “Telling” the hidden secrets of a haunted house are finally disclosed.

“Back Among the Shy Trees” is an enigmatic, disturbing tale where a man returning to his now abandoned family house discovers some sinister facts about his long forgotten childhood.

“Seeing the Woods”, a story of intense lyricism, portrays an old semi-blind lady living in a cabin in the woods. Here the ghosts are those of her beloved trees burned down during a fire.

The nostalgic, melancholy “Smoke in a Bottle” depicts how the past is a ghost haunting our present and “Est Enim Magnum Chaos” is yet another great story about life and death, loneliness and old age, where people, as in the lyrics of the famous song “Ol’ Man River” are “tired of living but scared of dying”.

All great stuff.

-Review by Mario Guslandi

by Marty Young, Black Beacon Books, 2013

Reviewed by Kyla Lee Ward

So, just what can an author like Marty Young do in a mere 189 pages?

For starters, set up one of those fictive situations that never end well. It’s the 1980s and fourteen-year-old Byron James is new in town. A run-down country town, where there’s nothing to do except go to school and there, it’s like he’s invisible. Only the other outcasts pay Byron any attention, and they are obsessed with the so-called Monster House out on Jacob Street. Byron is sceptical of their claims, Sceptical enough to go seeking answers himself.

“He knew then he was on the verge of the magical kingdom, the one he went seeking every time he ventured to the library. If he took another step back to where Joe had been, the old homeless man would come back into view and the shadows all about him would come to life… there’d be monsters in those shadowy vestiges of the world — there’d be nothing but monsters.”

At least Byron retains something of his childish innocence (“Kids who forgot they were growing up, he’d told them”). For all the immediacy of his fears, they can still be cast in terms of ghosts and vampires, entities with recognised limits and remedies. An exhausted remnant such as Joey Blue has no such defence.

Read the rest of this review at Tabula Rasa by clicking here.

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Review by Jodi Cleghorn

A time-traveling serial killer is impossible to trace – until one of his victims survives.

In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras, leaving anachronistic clues on their bodies, until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.

The Shining Girls by award-winning South African author, Lauren Beukes, is part dark supernatural thriller, part crime novel, part coming-of-age story, part time travel story, part historical fiction and part social commentary with a feminist bent. With so many angles to the narrative it could easily have become a tangled mess, yet Beukes pulls it off with class and style.

Set in Chicago, each of the historic periods reads authentically (though I am no expert) and it was refreshing to read the nuances in the voices of each of the POV characters (and there are a lot of them) based not just on personality but on the decade in question. Beukes has definitely not taken the easy way out.

The time travel (I’m calling it time shifting) rules are set early and as far as I can determine, the narrative abides by the rules (bending them slightly in terms of allowing Kirby and Mal entry to the house when they break in, by virtue of them possessing something from the house). The non-linear narrative of the time shifting stories occur between the linear stories of Harper in 1931/2 and Kirby in 1992. Like all the best time bending stories, you learn pieces of the plot out of time and without context allowing a slow piecing together of the larger narrative and those delicious a-ha moments when those non-context bits finally fall into place.

Kirby (the only of Harper’s girls to survive) is a protagonist with sass and you are with her each step of the way, desperately wanting her to find Harper so she’ll have vengeance and closure for her attack. It looks impossible, but slowly (partly through her own tenacity and partly through tightly-wound Harper coming apart at the seams) it looks achievable. I know there are others who have not enjoyed her bad-arse, punk attitude, but if the world spits in your face, you can either hide or go it head on. Kirby opts for the latter. Her hard-shelled, rebellious early 20’s self is consistent with the slightly detached, non-nonsense child we are introduced to early in the novel.

Dan (a burned out and jaded homicide journo-turned sportscaster) has the right amount of initial ambivalence toward Kirby as his intern and then pathos as her true mission is revealed. I have to agree with others that the romantic subplot woven into Dan’s character and the hapless knight in shining armour didn’t add anything. Beukes almost laughs at herself when Kirby re-asserts at the show down with Harper that Dan is Robin to her Batman. And while Dan might be in love with Kirby, there is a definite feel throughout that Kirby enjoys the off-beat companionship and perhaps a little flirtation but it’s an amorous relationship is not where she wants it to head. She is focused on the end goal and he is initially her meal ticket, then confidente and later partner-in-crime. Even the hardest and most determined protagonist needs someone to have their back in the 11th hour.

And then there is Harper, the time-shifting serial killer, terrifying in his cold-calculated stalking, the charismatic grooming of the young girls and sadistic dispatching of their older selves. His initial confusion in his changed circumstances helps to ground the reader in the weirdness of the house he happens upon while escaping from Hooverville vigilantes. The later awe, then fear of the plan laid out for him, gives us a sense of the inevitability of where he finds himself, both as a passive recipient ‘of the plan’ and as the active participant of ‘of murderer’. He’s the best type of antagonist because Beukes gives the reader a sense of Harper’s humanity as he attempts to court Nurse Etta. Despite his sociopathic drive, he still has a need for human understanding and contact, echoed again in his short-lived desire for Alice.

Being drawn into the worlds of each of the victims and their slaughter is perhaps the most horrific element of the book. We know from the list of names on the back cover who the girls are. At the first point of contact with each of them we know none of them will walk away with their lives as we are drawn into their worlds: their relationships, careers, hopes, pain and dreams. This makes each shining girl a well rounded character and amplifies the senseless violence of their deaths. (Beukes doesn’t hold back on the grisly details either.)

Each of the shining girls dies in their own time, but there is a sickening anticipation in the reader as Beukes kills some off in the chapter where we first meet them and others chapters later. The chaos of the reveal echoing Harper’s killing spree.

The story of Alice is perhaps the most disturbing of all, as the only one of Harper’s girls who waits with passionate intensity for his return. Harper, the man who kissed her with wild abandon when she was sacked from her job as a dancing girl in the carnival and then disappeared telling her he would be back. Alice waits for him to swan back into her life and save her. As the only girl with any agency in her death, she is perhaps the most closely aligned with Kirby and why she resonated with me beyond her death in a way the other women didn’t.

While ‘the shining’ is never articulated by Beukes (and this seems to have upset some readers–though it appears as ‘potential’ on some edition’s blurb and not on others?) it is there, woven intimately in the lives of each of women. They are all living outside the acceptable boundaries of society as dictated by the decade they’re in. They contain an inner fire that allows them to thumb their noses at societal expectations; to confront with verve and determination the discrimination and hurdles thrown up by their gender and complicated by race, career, sexual and political preferences. In some cases it is a personal choice, other times it is by luck (good and bad) of circumstances. It’s not just a knife blade that can extinguish the shining. It is not a certainty for the future as we see when Harper’s arrogance leads him to tamper with Catherine’s understanding of her life. While Catherine expires as the other shining girls do, it would seem she has been dead for years and Harper disappointed by this, becomes disillusioned and looses confidence in himself; he has undermined himself with the ego of his God complex.

The outstanding ensemble of characters is topped off by well-rounded secondary characters from Indian-goth Chet, one of the newspaper’s librarians to Rachel, the barely present mother surrounded by her own ineptitude and broken dreams as a woman, mother and artist. Then there is Kirby’s high school love, Fred Turner, who is so off the mark when they meet up again, that the car scene is beyond cringe-worthy. All are absolutely believable and add to the overall tapestry.

The only character I wondered about was Mal, the homeless addict, whose interest is piqued by the odd comings and going of Harper from the condemned building in Mel’s neighbourhood. While Mal ramps up Harper’s sense of paranoia by stealing from the house, the number of pages devoted to Mal seem superfluous to the overall narrative in what was such a strong collection of characters who all had something real to add to the momentum of the story.

And the house. (It appears I have a penchant for creepy houses.) The house is character, tech and paradox. The true nature of its existence revealed beautifully at the conclusion (it had me thinking of the Elyora Homestead). The paradox is circular, and is thus self-serving, but Beukes does a brilliant job of justifying it, filling in all the holes as she goes. The post script ties up the narrative perfectly, allowing the ends of the circle to fuse together in a truly satisfying manner.

The Shining Girls is a complex, gruesome, slow burn of a novel that achieves what it set out to do without taking the easy way out.

- review by Jodi Cleghorn

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane-based writer, editor and publisher. Learn all about her at http://jodicleghorn.wordpress.com/