'Amor Vincit Omnia' - K.J. Parker

Anyone who who has been following the blog, for a while, will know that I may well be the only person blogging who didn't get on with K.J. Parker's 'The Company'. You think I'm joking don't you (especially as you'd be hard pressed to find a bad word about Parker online)? Seriously, check out my review Here and you'll see what I mean about not getting on with 'The Company'.

I've only read one other story of Parker's since then, 'A Rich Full Week' - from the 'Swords and Dark Magic' anthology, (and I didn't get on brilliantly with that either) but I couldn't get away from the feeling that I might be missing out on something by staying away from the party. Have a look online and see if you can find a negative review of Parker's work... No, I couldn't either.

So it was then that when I came across a K.J. Parker conversation on Twitter, kicked off by the mighty brain behind 'Fantasy Faction', I knew that I had to get some recommendations and see if I was missing out on anything after all. Jared, of Pornokitsch fame, initially recommended 'The Folding Knife' but it was the promise of a free read that really piqued my interest. 'Amor Vincit Omnia' can be found, in its entirety, on the Subterranean Press website and made for a great little read before I went to bed. Then it made for a great little read on the way to work yesterday morning and the morning before that. I'd encourage you all to go and give it a read. I'm still not a hundred percent sure about K.J. Parker's work but I'm a lot more interested now than I've ever been. I'm going to have to find a copy of 'The Folding Knife' and check that out as well...

'Amor Vincit Omnia' is based in the same setting as 'A Rich Full Week' where magic has been defined as another branch of philosophy and science. I'll say right now that the definition is a lot more clear this time round as there is a lot of discussion around the variants of established 'science' being employed by a renegade who is displaying his powers in the worst possible way. It's the most innocuous of these though that is proving the most cause for alarm and a member of the scientific community, deemed promising yet expendable, is sent to take care of what could prove to be a very large problem indeed. Can the actions required to resolve this issue really be justified though?

I have to say that my initial reading of 'Amor Vincit Omnia' just threw all the same issues in my face that I'd had with 'The Company'. There is just no getting away from the fact that Parker can be an incredibly dry writer who loves to go on in a little too much length about the technical theory underpinning her stories, how things work and why they should work like that. This is even worse in a short story like 'Amor Vincit Omnia' where a lot of the explanation comes in the first few paragraphs, that's an awful lot to wade through before you can get to the story itself!

Having said that though, while it's clear to me now that while Parker enjoys going into the technical side of things there's also evidence of a sense of humour in 'Amor Vincit Omnia' that suggests a different kind of enjoyment entirely. I'm talking about lines like,

'There was a short, rather painful silence. Raw emotion, like raw chicken, upset elderly gentlemen of regular habits.'

Lines like that, and there are more, actually did a lot to dispel that air of dryness and kept me reading in the hope of finding more. I found myself chuckling at completely unexpected moments, the best kind of chuckling you can do.

'Amor Vincit Omnia' is a lot more than a humorous tale though (although I did enjoy some of the parallels drawn with Pratchett's Unseen University). It's a very clever tale that seizes on what look like throwaway sentences and shows them to be pivotal moments in the story. I'm talking about moments so tiny that you'll pass over them to get to what you think is the meaty stuff, only to find that you've bypassed something really tasty. Parker is clearly very adept at getting the reader to go where she wants them to and then changing the direction of the story entirely. I also found the implications of 'Lorica' to be real food for thought and something that gave the story real impetus in all the right places.

But 'Amor Vincit Omnia' is a lot more than this as well. It's very much a tale about the lengths people will go to in order to keep the balance of power just as it is and regardless of the cost. The reader can understand the reasoning behind this ('Lorica' is a very big deal) but once you see what Framea must do, and the results of this, then you can't help but wonder if the renegade should have just been allowed to walk away and live in relative ignorance of his abilities. There's a lot to think about here and that's one of the reasons I came back to this story more than once.

I don't think I'll ever be entirely comfortable with Parker's dry tone and the level of technical detail, in what I've read so far, will always have me stifling a yawn or two. 'Amor Vincit Omnia' goes beyond this though and the end result is nothing short of a gripping read. 'Amor Vincit Omnia' is the tale that got me back into reading K.J. Parker and I'm looking forward to hopefully reading more of the same.

Nine and a Half out of Ten

‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ – Peter F. Hamilton

So it turns out that there were a lot more anthologies hiding on my shelves than I ever realised… I have no idea what I was looking for, when I was browsing the other day, but it certainly wasn’t the copy of ‘Solaris Rising’ that was nestled amongst the hardbacks.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I don’t have the time to write the kind of anthology reviews that I’ve written in the past (although that could change with a couple of books that I hope to read very soon) What I do have though is the time to write fairly quick reviews on short stories that I’ve happened to come across when dipping into a collection. Like ‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ for example.

It was the title that initially caught my eye, don’t tell me that it didn’t catch yours… :o) What really piqued my interest though is that ‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ is only four and a half pages long. We’ve all seen Peter F. Hamilton’s books on the shelves, I know that his short story ‘The Forever Kitten’ weighs in at just under a thousand words but I still can’t get my head around the fact that Hamilton can write short stuff as well as long. I had to give ‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ a go and… It was completely different to what I had been expecting.

Yep; that title is a great way of hooking the reader, giving them something very different and hooking them all over again. Hamilton steps back from the realms of sci-fi that we all know and love to give us a story from the other side of the fence (as it were). A tale of a former science fiction writer about to get a nasty surprise from his past on the eve of his new (far more literary adventure).

It’s a clever tale, in some ways, although I suspect not as clever as it wanted to be. I like the premise, which is very tightly drawn, but it’s over far too quickly for the reader to get much more than the vaguest of feelings for the situation or either of the characters involved. I found myself getting to the end of the story and wondering what happened next… but not in a good way. What was meant to be a killer final line just left things feeling rather unfinished.

What I did like though were the moments where Hamilton bought himself to the fore of the story, injecting a note of humour on occasion that was more than welcome. References to ‘The Day’s Twilight’ trilogy were a little obvious but still definitely good for a chuckle. More than that though, these moments really got me thinking about why Hamilton wrote ‘Return of the Mutant Worms’ in the first place (especially when you read the little author bio at the beginning of the story).Is Hamilton merely commenting about the unsavoury practices of the small press or is this about something hitting a little closer to home? It has to be the former… doesn’t it? Of course it does but it does make for some interesting idle speculation.

‘The Return of the Mutant Worms’ surprised me with its direction but didn’t quite do the job it set out to do, not as far as I was concerned anyway. Definitely an entertaining read though, even if it wasn’t for the right reasons… or were they? ;o)

Eight out of Ten

‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘Dance of the Damned’

There used to be a time when I could review a whole anthology here and pay attention to each and every one of the stories contained therein. Not these days though, not with anthologies being released that can make even a Steven Erikson novel look all weak and anaemic (I’m looking at you ‘The Weird’ and you know it…)
Instead of leaving these books to gather dust on my lovely new shelves I thought I’d find a way round the ‘reviewing problem’ by picking out one story, every now and again, and writing a short post about it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? So why am I looking at two short stories today...?

While I’d love to sound like I know what I’m talking about, the truth is far more… well… me really. I thought that today’s post could feature a tale from Otto Penzler’s ‘Zombies’ compendium and, opening the book completely a random, found myself faced with the illustrated opening to Arthur J. Burk’s ‘Dance of the Damned’. I’d never read anything of Burk’s and resolved to set that straight right away. At least until I closed the book and realised that I’d forgotten to pop a bookmark in…
A quick trip to the list of contents showed me that H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Pickman’s Model’ was also to be found in the book. Here was a tale that I’d heard a lot of good things about but wasn’t included in the ‘Call of Cthulhu’ collection that I’ve been dipping in and out of.
Which story to post about first? Why not both of them…

Reading both ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘Dance of the Damned’ immediately informs the reader as to how diverse and far ranging the term ‘zombie’ actually is. For those of us who think that zombies can be neatly divided into ‘shamblers’ and ‘runners’ there’s a lot more to it, a lot more. Arthur J. Burk’s 1936 tale hearkens right back to a time when zombies were only really a part of Voodoo lore although ‘Dance of the Damned’ does attempt to bring science into the picture with a mad scientist kidnapping partygoers and killing them so that he can raise them from the dead.
Lovecraft’s ‘Pickman’s Model’ is perhaps a little more tenuous in calling itself a ‘zombie tale’ but the argument is there and it’s not a bad one either. Zombies are the ‘living dead’ or ‘undead’; what lurks beneath the streets of Lovecraft’s Boston is not only ‘undead’ but also quite happily makes a feast of the living. That’s a zombie in a nutshell if you ask me. Without giving too much away about the tale, Pickman’s model may not strictly be a zombie but shares enough of the same characteristics not to look out of place in this collection.

I spent a happy couple of hours, yesterday afternoon, totally engrossed in both ‘Pickman’s Model’ and ‘Dance of the Damned. Both tales had a lot to offer and kept me occupied until the little one woke up. If you were to find me in a week’s time though, which of the two tales would still be at the forefront of my mind? I would have to say that ‘Pickman’s Model’ would edge it here.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot to recommend ‘Dance of the Damned’. What we have here is a tale in the finest traditions of the finest pulp. There’s a terrible disaster that is being marked by a wild and rowdy party with our hero and heroine in attendance. A mystery unfolds in a wave of death and it is up to our hero to solve that mystery before any more people die. ‘Dance of the Damned’ is a fast paced affair with an underlying mystery that surprises on more than one front. Just when you think you’ve got your head around something quite simple Burk turns things upside down and leaves you with your mouth wide open by the very end of the story. A man can do what he is sure is the right thing but is it really? Our hero will never know for sure and Burk’s plan is that we’ll never be quite sure either. The problem is that that final surprise comes at the right time to dumbfound our hero but it’s maybe just a little too late to have the same kind of affect on the reader. ‘Dance of the Damned’ also chooses to focus a little bit too much on its characters and the atmosphere of the piece feels more like an afterthought than something that can really grip you. It’s not a bad story but ‘Dance of the Damned’ misses its opportunity to really grab you by the throat.

Not so with ‘Pickman’s Model’, a story that I’ll be pondering over for a while to come. I am in awe of ‘Pickman’s Model’ and its ability to unsettle on so many levels. You can’t help but be unsettled in the presence of the narrator who is so scared that he initially doesn’t want to tell the story at all. What an amazing hook to get the reader on board, it certainly worked for me. Lovecraft doesn’t stop there, mingling some of the more sordid histories of Boston with the activities of Pickman himself and how this is expressed in his art. ‘Pickman’s Model’ is certainly one of the more graphic of Lovecraft’s stories (that I’ve read anyway) with no detail spared the attention of the reader. This approach makes for some uncomfortable reading and this is very much deliberate. ‘Pickman’s Model’ isn’t just about a brief glimpse into the mind of an insane artist, it’s also about where Pickman gets that inspiration from. This is delivered in one of Lovecraft’s trademark ‘earth shattering final sentences’ and the affect really hits home. Our narrator doesn’t like the subway and his words will be lurking at the back of my head the next time I take the tube.

A couple of very good stories then and well worth a look if you can get your hands on either. If you can only get hold of one though, make it ‘Pickman’s Model’.

‘Dance of the Damned’ 8.5/10
‘Pickman’s Model’ 10/10

‘The Colour Out Of Space’ – H.P. Lovecraft

You are going to be seeing an awful lot of short stories on the blog this year… I hope you don’t mind although there’s not an awful lot I can do about it if you do! Things being as they are at the moment (you know, the whole job hunting thing and so on…) reading time is at a real premium so shorter reads are inevitable. I also thought that focusing on a few short stories, here and there, would be a nice little way to give a little nod to all those anthologies that end up on my shelves and never seem to be picked up. Collections like ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ for instance.

The plan was to run a much larger post that talked about the book as a whole but as I was reading through I couldn’t help but feel that Lovecraft was basically telling the same story over and over again. You boil things down and each story is essentially saying that man isn’t physically or mentally capable of handling the fact that the world is a lot larger than he ever realised. It’s a cruel and uncaring world beyond the limits of what is familiar… I think that’s fair enough to a degree, writing to a formula is pretty much a must if you’ve discovered a way to sell your stories to the pulp magazines. Saying the same thing about each story though… Well, that wouldn’t make for a particularly interesting review really so I thought I’d pick one story out of the book and write about that instead. I will continue to read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ but probably along those same lines; I think it’s a book that needs to be tackled in bite sized chunks rather than read in one sitting.

Anyway, the story I chose was (of course) ‘The Colour Out Of Space’; purely for the sense of intriguing weirdness that nestles within the title. A Colour from Out Of Space? What’s that all about…? There’s only one way to find out and I found it all too easy to get reading. ‘The Colour Out Of Space’ is a slow-burner but ultimately proves to be worth the initial effort required.

The narrator has been sent to the area west of Arkham to carry out survey work for a new reservoir that is to be built. The stories he hears though makes him glad that the area will soon be underwater and also makes him promise himself that he will never drink that water. There something lurking in the countryside that is not of this world…

I’m not going to lie, Lovecraft almost lost me here before the tale even got going and precisely because the tale takes its own sweet time getting going. What’s odd here is Lovecraft takes very little time in painting a dark and sinister picture of countryside tainted by… something. It’s a great hook that had me wanting to find out more straight away but Lovecraft went wrong (as far as I was concerned) was in telling the reader exactly what was going on and in no small detail. These pages drag and told me more than I wanted to know about scientific experiments on the meteorite etc. The weirdness is dispelled (albeit temporarily) by the cold light of science which lays things bare a little too well. What’s even more odd is that Lovecraft manages to cram all that unwanted detail into about three pages, three incredibly stodgy and dry pages that did their level best to put me off reading any further. Nice work there Mr Lovecraft…

I kept reading though and am glad I did. Lovecraft shows the reader that there is a lot more weirdness to this downed meteorite than at first meets the eye. ‘The Colour Out Of Space’ soon becomes a tale of inexorable doom being visited on a farmer and his family, drawn out with lots of little (and not so little) hints that things are horribly wrong.

For a writer who sought to redefine horror by moving his tales away from the realm of ghosts and witches, Lovecraft seems quite happy to dress ‘The Colour Out Of Space’ in the clothes that made those tales so scary in the first place. We’re talking unexplained lights and trees moving when they shouldn’t; we’re also talking about of the gradual descent into insanity for the family that this is all visited on.
Having said that though, Lovecraft does add his own touch of weirdness as well and the overall affect makes for a deeply unsettling yet compelling read. I couldn’t get enough of it anyway, rooting for the poor family of Nahum Gardner but knowing that their fate was already sealed.

Lovecraft ekes things out gradually and the gradual release of detail proves to be a great way of making the reader want to stay around to get the full picture. And what a picture it proves to be, a family and an entire region blighted by an alien presence that seems to be barely aware of anything else other than itself, except when it’s hungry. That lack of motivation (or acknowledgement of its surroundings) makes the ‘Colour’ somehow seem even worse than your regular vampire, or whatever, that has some dreams of power at least. The ‘Colour’ just exists to, well… exist really. It’s the repercussions for this existence that are horrifying.

Lovecraft leaves us with the knowledge that we are less than a thought to the other life forms of the universe that pass by our planet. The passing of such life forms will always leave a mark though and the repercussions of this will echo long after the ‘Colour’ gets to wherever it was going in the first place.
‘The Colour Out Of Space’ hasn’t left me wanting to avoid drinking the water from my local reservoir but is an unsettling read nonetheless. If it had got into gear a little quicker then maybe I’d be thinking twice about turning the tap on.

Eight and a Half out of Ten

‘How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Gnoles’ – Lord Dunsany

I don’t know if I’m looking in all the wrong places (probably) but I can’t seem to find anything by Lord Dunsany on the shelves at the moment; this is all the more annoying as I’ve never read any of his works up until now. I’d really love to get hold of a copy of ‘The King of Elfland’s Daughter’…
Luckily for me then, I found ‘How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Gnoles’ hidden within the depths of Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s ‘The Weird’, an anthology so large that I will never be able to review it all in one go. The plan is then to take bite sized chunks out of the book and feature them here every now and again. ‘How Nuth Would Have Practiced His Art Upon The Gnoles’ is the first such chunk…

‘Despite the advertisements of rival firms, it is probable that every tradesman knows that nobody in business at the present time has a position equal to Mr. Nuth.’

Mr. Nuth is… well, a master burglar with no rivals that even come close to his prowess. If you want something then Nuth is the man to get it for you even though there may be a price to pay later on; that price is worth it though. The story is only three pages long and at least a third of it is telling the reader how great Nuth is at his trade.

So far so… well, not really that weird at all. We’ve basically been shown a portrait of a man who is very good at his trade although the moment where he surprises visitors is a little unsettling…

‘For a long while they waited, and then there was a smell of pipe tobacco, and there was Nuth standing quite close to them.’

The weirdness is still to come and there is no doubt that Dunsany delivers on this score. Nuth and his young apprentice set out to steal emeralds from the Gnoles and Dunsay uses the plot to show us just how far outside human understanding the realm of Faerie is as well as how dangerous it can be.

‘The nearest village was some miles away with the backs of all it’s houses turned to the wood, and without one window at all facing in that direction.’

‘They saw the skeleton of some early Georgian poacher nailed to a door in an oak tree; sometimes they saw a fairy scuttle away from them…’

Dunsany shows us very clearly (but not too clearly as that would defeat the point) that there is a world just outside or view that operates on rules that we would be mad to try and understand. It is weird and we are right to be a little nervous and afraid as we follow Nuth and his apprentice into the wood.

In a setting like this, the only possible outcome to the job is the one that Dunsany gives us and he makes it all the more frightening by refusing to divulge the fate of the apprentice. Nuth escapes though and this reader was left wondering if Nuth had a little Faerie blood in him…
An excellent tale and I will put a lot more effort into searching out Lord Dunsany’s works on the strength of it. 'Weird' is definitely the word to describe it.

Richard Matheson – Some Short Stories...

A shorter than normal post today, so much to get done before Christmas...


We might act cool and make out that what’s on the cover on a book wouldn’t dissuade us from picking it up. I’m not so sure though, at least from my own perspective. I’ve still to see the Will Smith ‘I Am Legend’ although the reviews I’ve seen suggest that I might just be better off sticking with the book... Tor very kindly sent me a copy of ‘I Am Legend’ (so did Gollancz but that’s another story) and my first thought when I saw it was, ‘oh no, it’s got the Will Smith cover...’ I know that sounds really ungrateful but there you go.

I guess the point of this post really is to give you all a little heads up and say that even though the cover might seem off-putting at first give this edition a chance; there’s much more to this book than meets the eye and I’m really glad I picked it up.

Get past that front cover (which isn’t actually that bad...) and you’ll find that not only are you getting ‘I Am Legend’ but you’re also getting a collection of short stories as well. Short stories that scared the you know what out of me... The quality may vary but only because Matheson is prepared to take a shot at experimenting with different writing styles. ‘Dress of White Silk’ is written from the perspective of a small girl and her language stops the story from being as clear as it would like to be. The end line rescues things though and in some style. If there’s one thing that Matheson is good at, it’s a killer final line that turns everything on its head and leaves you gasping. ‘The Near Departed’ is a great example of this with the line “As soon as I get home”... It makes me shiver even now and I highly recommend you track this short story down even if you don’t read any of the others. I wasn’t too keen on ‘Dance of the Dead’ either as the attention paid to the spectacle seemed to come at the expense of any point to the story...

The short story section actually opens with ‘Buried Talents’, a weird tale that focuses on fostering a sense of unease around something that cannot be explained. The real twist comes in the final paragraphs though and the reader has to really pay attention if the final line is to make any sense. Re-read that bit as many times as you need to, the end result is worth it.

‘Prey’ is probably my favourite story in the collection, a fast paced and remorseless affair where a woman is trapped in her house by a killer doll. While I ended up skimming certain other stories (I’m looking at you ‘From Shadowed Places’, you meandered in all the wrong places) I couldn’t take my eyes off ‘Prey’ until it ended and, even then, it still played on my mind afterwards.

‘Witch War’ didn’t look like there was much to it at first but the shocks came through the contrast between these sweet looking girls (with their banal conversation) and what they were able to do to the enemy. Matheson doesn’t hold back and this just makes things that much more powerful.

Things took a comedic turn when I got round to reading ‘The Funeral’ (creepy but intentionally amusing) and this change in tone came at just the right time, after the creeping madness and inevitability of ‘Mad House’. ‘Mad House’ is a nasty but compelling read, I could see the ending coming but found myself reading on to see if Chris would realise what was happening and get out. Another powerful ending was on display here and Matheson turned Chris’ anger back on himself in a way that will have you eyeing your household furniture nervously (if you’re anything like me).

Things were rounded up with ‘Person to Person’, a devilish tale where Matheson keeps turning things round until neither the reader nor Millman knows what’s going on. The ending is all the more scary for this as you’re left still not really knowing any of the reasons behind it. What a way to keep you thinking about the story after you’ve read it...

‘I Am Legend’ is a book that’s worth picking up anyway but if you see the Tor edition (mass market) then definitely pick it up; there are some real gems here for those who enjoy a chilling read...

Short Story Corner! ‘Muriel’ and ‘Torment’

Because that’s the way my reading seems to have gone these last couple of days; either reading a short story in a genre magazine or focussing on the bits I haven’t read in an omnibus collection. It has made for a really nice change actually; I’m going through one of my phases of not really being able to get into anything (entirely down to me, not the books I’m picking up) so reading something that’s only a few pages long meant that I could finish it before the apathy kicked in. I reckon you might just see a few more short stories showing up here in the future.
What short stories have I been reading then...?

‘Muriel’ – David Moody

I might be wrong here (although I don’t think I am) but the only way you’re going to be able to read ‘Muriel’ is if you pick up one of the few remaining copies of the ‘SFX Zombie Special’ that are still on the shelves. The magazine itself is a bit pricy but if you like zombies then you’ll find yourself picking it up anyway I’m sure. I did and I’ve had a lot of fun reading it :o)

Moody already has strong zombie form for his ‘Autumn’ series which had a massive following (thanks to free downloads) before Gollancz took it on board. I’ve reviewed a couple of the books Here and Here if you fancy a look. He was perhaps an obvious choice then to contribute a story, for the ‘Zombie Special’ and the decision definitely paid off as far as I was concerned. The setting is aligned a little more closely with the ‘traditional’ zombie apocalypse than Moody is known for (‘Autumn’ looks at the zombie apocalypse in perhaps a slightly more thoughtful way) but Moody does still manage to showcase the kind of character development that he does so well. Chris Wilkins (our hero) is full of how great he is at surviving the zombie apocalypse but there’s still one more lesson for him to learn and it might just kill him. It’s the way that Moody delivers this lesson that makes the story work the way it does, changing the tone from being rather smug to one where Chris is suddenly incapable of saving his own life. Without giving too much away, I enjoyed the way in which the tables are turned on Chris again and again; he really isn’t as smart as he thinks he is and we also learn a lesson that overconfidence can be deadly.

Above all though, Moody shows us that the zombie apocalypse is an intensely personal affair and you must embrace that if you are to stand any chance of surviving. Cutting yourself off can do more harm than good...

‘Torment’ – Anthony Reynolds

If you scroll down the page, just a little bit, you will see the cover art for the ‘Word Bearers Omnibus’; ‘Torment’ is the short story that sits right at the end of this collection. As such, it’s pretty clear that you need to have at least read ‘Dark Creed’ if you’re going to get the most out of ‘Torment’; the tale stands well enough on its own but there’s so much more background waiting for you to get your teeth into it.

Again, I can’t give too much away (especially if you haven’t read ‘Dark Creed’) but ‘Torment’ is essentially a ‘chase story’ that asks a pretty big question of both its main character and the reader; what is real and what is our ‘hero’ running away from? The answer is pretty clear, or is it...? If you’ve read ‘Dark Creed’ then you’ll know for sure (maybe) but that end note of uncertainty is delicious nevertheless. The chase sequence is both exciting and nightmarish all at the same time. The Basilica of Torment brims over with all that is dark and hideous, run through with an air of religious devotion that has been twisted into something utterly wrong. We’re talking imagery that you will find sat behind your eyelids long after you finish the actual story. All of this is punctuated with action sequences that show you all too clearly that the only thing tougher than a Space Marine is a Space Marine that has been bonded with a daemon of the Warp... ‘Torment’ is a dark and powerful read that I think all fans of this particular series will enjoy.

‘Pigeons from Hell’ – Robert E. Howard (Taken from 'The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard)

I’ve got to admit that the first time I saw this title (on a comic in Forbidden Planet, years ago) I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. Pigeons have to be the dumbest birds I’ve ever come across so to be asked to imagine that there’s anything even slightly demonic about these dopey birds... well, I just couldn’t. I didn’t pick it up but, funnily enough, I’ll be reviewing the trade paperback (Joe Lansdale’s sequel to Howard’s original) early next week and more than likely revising my opinion of it.
I didn’t realise that ‘Pigeons from Hell’ was a Robert E. Howard short story until I came across it again in the ‘Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics’. I wasn’t able to get the most out of it there though as I found myself saying, ‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a classic Robert E. Howard horror story and the artwork here is brooding and chilling at the same time. It’s a shame then that the publisher forgot to include the words…’ Life took over (as it does) after that and I never got round to reading ‘Pigeons’, until now.

My ‘Robert E. Howard’ month’ seemed like the ideal time to dig out my copy of ‘The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard’ and finally get to grips with ‘Pigeons from Hell’. It’s a tale of horror that has all the right ingredients in abundance, all cooked to near perfection...

Two New Englanders (the main character Griswell and his friend John Branner) are travelling in the Deep South and decide to spend the night in a deserted plantation. Only one of them makes it out alive though, Griswell being chased by the axe bearing and bloody corpse of his friend...
What killed John Branner? The Sheriff that Griswell runs into wonders if it was Griswell himself but the truth is far more horrifying. To uncover this truth, the two men must return to the manor that has seen more than its fair share of sadistic cruelty and revenge...

‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a gloomily atmospheric piece that cunningly conceals its moments of horror until they’re right up in your face and you can’t get away from them. You know that they’re coming though and I for one had to keep reading and find them. There’s a tantalising mystery lurking within the old Blassenville Manor, a place that the locals won’t go near after dark and where the sight of pigeons around the rooftop is an omen of the grimmest sort.

If you ever thought that Howard was just all about mighty heroes doing mighty deeds then read ‘Pigeons from Hell’ and have your mind changed. This slice of ‘Southern Horror’ will quite happily lead you down all manner of blind alleys and leave you expecting and ending that you won’t get. You may think that the ending doesn’t offer much that is new but I guarantee that you won’t see it coming until its right there in front of you. Talk about ‘out of the blue’!

Howard approaches his horror with the same energy that he would a battle scene in a Conan story; the result being moments in the story that are genuinely terrifying. Howard lets the reader right into Griswell’s head and you get a ringside seat for everything that happens to him. There are chilling moments of suspense and there are moments that are just nasty; Howard doesn’t pull any punches at all and ‘Pigeons’ flows all the more smoothly for it, each scene pushing things forward at just the right speed.

All of these moments are set against a stark backdrop of ‘Deep Southern Decay’ where the grim and foreboding backdrop either hides a secret or just looks like it does. Either way, the background combines perfectly with the plot to form a story that does exactly what it sets out to do and in some style.

‘Pigeons from Hell’ is a gloriously unsettling slice of horror that showcases Howard’s talent for writing stories that you can’t help but read until the bitter end. Those final scenes will remain in my head for a long time to come.

Ten out of Ten

‘Stories for Night Time And Some for The Day’ – Ben Loory (Penguin)

One of the things that I enjoy most about blogging here is the opportunity that it gives me to take a chance on something new every now and then, something that you wouldn’t normally find me picking up at all in fact. A large chunk of the time I’m reminded of why I never pick up certain books but I’ll often find myself pleasantly surprised by a sub-genre that I thought I’d got a handle on.

Much rarer though are the occasions where taking a chance on a random book will uncover an absolute gem of a book that will leave you astounded by just how much it has been able to reach into your head and mess with your very soul. A book that you just can’t stop thinking about. Last night I was lucky enough to come across one of these books, Ben Loory’s debut short story collection. It’s not perfect by any means but it’s a book that I couldn’t put down until I’d finished and it’s spent every moment since then elbowing my more mundane thoughts out of the way and taunting me with the questions that it’s left unanswered.

When reviewing a short story collection I’d normally say something about each of the stories within. Not this time though, we’re looking at forty short stories here and I don’t have the time to tackle that right now (even though each story is four or five pages long at the longest, the whole book is only two hundred and ten pages long). I also suspect that you folks wouldn’t have the time to read through all that so lets just say that I’m doing you a favour and leave it at that ;o)

The other reason I’m avoiding that approach here is because Loory has written all the stories and I would invariably end up saying the same things about each one. I don’t want to do that either but it is worth talking a little about how Loory approaches each story in the book as a whole, the end effect is something really special.

Loory has the happy knack of being to take something really weird (afternoon tea with an octopus for example or a romance between two aliens) and write about it in the most ordinary way. The end result are very accessible stories that introduce you to the weirdness without you even realising it; it’s so gradual so that you don’t even know what’s going on until right at the end, the exact moment where Loory will hit you with a powerful ending over and over again. I am in awe of any author who can consistently hit the nail on the head with endings that either shock or leave you deep in thought; Ben Loory is very much a member of this select group.

At the same time, Loory also has the talent of being able to take something completely ordinary and write about it in the strangest of ways (a love shared by an elderly couple over many years for example). These stories have a similar kind of effect, as when Loory approaches his stories from the opposite direction but the end result for the whole book is all the more compelling for it. The bottom line is that you just don’t know whether you’re going to get ‘ordinarily weird’ or ‘weirdly ordinary’ (or even sometimes downright terrifying – check out ‘The Tunnel’ and you’ll see what I mean) and you find yourself having to keep reading in order to find out.

I’ve already mentioned ‘The Tunnel’ but other highlights for me were ‘The Octopus’, ‘The Man Who Went to China’ and ‘The Snake in the Throat’. The first two get picked for their weirdness while ‘The Man Who Went to China’ was chosen for an open ending that adds to the overall impact of the tale. ‘The Snake in the Throat’ however was chosen for another theme that Loory has added to the book.

Ben Loory is fond of including little messages to his tales (fables?) that are there to give you something to think about, maybe even to make you wonder if there’s something that you personally could learn. Sometimes Loory can be a little heavy-handed with these messages at the expense of the story itself; possibly because this book is meant to be as much for children as it is adults. You can understand this but it doesn’t mean that you have to like it. There were occasions where it all felt a little forced to me but, on the whole, you can’t argue with a book where the overriding message runs along the lines of, ‘be happy but keep an eye on the shadows at the same time’ (and I’m thinking of ‘The Swimming Pool’ here, another favourite).

Loory doesn’t dress up his tales in fancy prose either. He is obviously a man who appreciates the importance of a good tale well told and strips his prose right down in order that the story itself can shine. And his stories do shine, every single one of them. Loory may fall into the trap of labouring his point, every now and then, but when you look at the book as a whole... I’ve gone on about it enough already. I’m going back for a re-read of a book that has found itself my surprise read of the year.

Nine and Three Quarters out of Ten

‘The Best of Michael Moorcock’ (Tachyon Press)

Calling a collection of short stories ‘The Best Of...’ always strikes me as rather a risky title for any book as it’s really only a reflection of the author/editor’s own personal opinion. Their ‘Best Of...’ is unlikely to match everyone else’s and it will invariably be the basis for all sorts of discussion (which is a good thing).
When I saw that this new collection of previously published stories, by Michael Moorcock, had input from Ann and Jeff Vandermeer I felt a little happier about the title; these guys know what they are talking about and wouldn’t stick a title like this on the front cover if they weren’t a hundred percent happy with it. There’s also the fact that Michael Moorcock has to be right up there in any list of ‘Prolific Authors’ and although I’ve read a lot of his science fiction and fantasy I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of everything else that he has written. When there’s so much still to read, the odds are good that you’ll find something that will make your own personal ‘Best Of’ list.
It’s taken me a while to get through this one but I’m glad I did. This book can be a demanding read at times but the rewards are great...

This would normally be the part of the review where I’d give you a brief summary of the plot. Well, you’re not getting that today as I’m not going to be summarising each and every one of the short stories on display here! Suffice it to say that fans of Elric and Jerry Cornelius will be pleased to see their heroes make a brief appearance and anyone who has ever wondered what else Moorcock writes about will have their questions answered. There’s a lot of sci-fi on offer here but it goes well beyond Moorcock’s ‘Eternal Champion’ series...

‘The Best of Michael Moorcock’ really isn’t a collection that you can read all in one go, at least I couldn’t. Individually, each story is well worth your time (subject to the laws of personal preference, more on that later on) but when they’re all put together the book becomes full of big ideas and heavy going prose that was a little bit too heavy for me. I found myself getting bogged down in a concept for the simple reason that I was still trying to get my head round something in the previous story! You might breeze through the whole book in one sitting but I found that the best way to tackle ‘The Best of Michael Moorcock’ was in small doses so as to get the most out of each story.

Michael Moorcock is a man who clearly knows how to tell a tale if the stories here are anything to go by. As is the case with all short story collections, not everything worked for me. I’ll own up to being a victim of the hype surrounding how controversial ‘Behold the Man’ is. I liked the idea (how ‘The Time Traveller’ could have turned out if H.G. Wells had been smoking a lot of weed) but it ended up feeling a little tame in its execution. ‘A Winter Admiral’ was another one that didn’t really work for me; I came away with the feeling that a little more grounding in the world of the Begg Family would have opened the story up a lot more.

Despite this, both stories had me hooked from the word go (in fact, all of them did). Moorcock has a way of making a character’s innermost being totally accessible to the reader (the female lead in ‘The Opium General’ is a great example) in such a way that your attention is no longer your own. His love of London also shines through in stories like ‘Lunching with the Anti-Christ’ and ‘London Bone’. If you’ve ever lived in London you’ll know exactly what he is on about and if you haven’t then you may find yourself wanting to take a wander down Portobello Road or around Notting Hill itself.

The ‘stand out’ stories for me were the ones where Moorcock decided to really let go and see what his imagination came up with. ‘The Visible Men’ demands a re-read (at least from me anyway) to get just what the heck he is on about. ‘The Deep Fix’ paints a grim picture of a post-apocalyptic earth (I’ll bet you never saw us going out like that!) and then blows it all away with a massive twist right at the very end. ‘My Experiences in the Third World War’ is a glorious descent past the point of no return into the realm of nuclear warfare. The Cossack’s charge, right at the very end, makes it all too clear that we will never be ready for the horrors such warfare will bring.

Is this collection the ‘Best’ of Michael Moorcock? You’ll get a different answer every time you ask the question (my money is still on the ‘Oswald Bastable’ books) but what I would say is that this book is a great stepping stone for anyone wanting to find out if there is more to Moorcock than Elric or Corum. There’s much more to him than that...

Eight and Three Quarters out of Ten