Just read (2013)

[Fenril]

What have you read this year and what were your overall impressions of it?

First, I decided to give another go at polishing off a bunch of old (and not so old) horror paperbacks that I have had lying around for sometime.

So I just finished:

- Triage. Nouvelle anthology with Richard Laymon, Edward Lee and Jack Ketchum. All three entries start with the premise of a stranger walking into a place of business and opening fire.

"Triage", by Richard Laymon, takes place on a business office. Fast-paced and entertaining, as you can expect with Laymon; also thoroughly implausible and more than a little reactionary, as can sometimes be expected of him.

"In the year of our lord: 2202", by Edward Lee takes place in a space station. This is the first thing I've read by Lee and I gotta admit it was a lot betten than I expected. Given that Lee is famously "the king of gross-out" I was expecting something deplorable (or rather, something along the lines of Bentley Little); instead, this was a very entertaining pulp actioner, and not nearly as gory or sexual as one would assume. It's the longest entry in the book, which is a good thing, because the writing stile actually improves as it goes on.

"Sheep meadow story" by Jack Ketchum takes place in a bar or rather it seems to, at first. The shortest entry is the trickiest one and more or less the one with better character development. Unfortunately, it has the most annoying lead of the entire collection.

All three entries have a twist ending (a different kind of twist in each). Laymon's is the weakest (which is surprising), the other two are kind of clever.

- Among the missing, by Richard Laymon. More murder mystery with some gore and sex than horror story per se, but a thoroughly entertaining riff. There's a very clever plot twist near the ending, but the actual climax is a bit dissapointing. This could have used an epilogue and a lot less informationg about a sheriff's gun fetish and disdain for pierced girls (and this is supposed to be a good guy?!).

Currently reading "Gerald's game", by Stephen King.

The rest of the list is:

- Everything's eventual. Stephen King.
- Twinkle, twinkle, 'killer' Kane. William Peter Blatty.
- The ninth configuration.
- The travelling vampire show. Richard Laymon.
- Friday night in Beast house.
- Merrick. Anne Rice.
- Whisper of death. Christopher Pike.
- The white people. Arthur Machen.
- The terror.
- Adrift on the haunted seas. William Hope Hodgson.

DONE!

[Fenril]

- Gerald's game, by Stephen King. A couple's bondage game goes horribly wrong when the husband dies of a heart attack and leaves the wife naked, chained to their bed and powerless to stop the stray dog that just wandered inside. And that's just the beginning of her problems...

Using a famous urban legend as the starting point, this is typical post 70's King --one of those books where he tried to do something other than horror. And for the most part he suceeds, but ultimately the actual horror elements (particularly the last three chapters) don't really mesh with what was clearly intented to be a feminist (ish) survival drama. It's also a lot longer than it needed to be, through it's so fast paced that's never really a problem.

This forms a pseudo-trilogy with "Dolores Claiborne" and "Rose Madder", his other early 90's... dramas? Thrillers?

[Fenril]

- Everything's eventual. A collection of short stories (in some cases novellas) by Stephen King.

This is a rather mixed bag, but not in the way King himself seems to intend. According to his introduction and a few notes in the book, King considers that this collection includes "more literary stories" and "all-out screamers". Sure, through King's stile is such than everytime he tried a different genre (mostly gritty drama and the ocassional sci-fi and fantasy) it has a lingering obsession in gruesome details that doesn't really let his work fit anywhere but on horror [not because other genres can't have dark or violent parts, but because of the way King's narrative eye *lingers* on them].
What makes it a mixed bag is the quality: there are several fairly mediocre entries, both "literary" and horror.

However, there are several very good works, as well. For me, the highlights were: "Lunch at the Gotham café" , "Riding the bullet" [that infamous e-book that he actually finished; regardless of that it's a rare case of a King story that works both as a simple supernatural riff and as a moving family drama], "L. T.'s Theory of pets" [while I'm positive it wasn't King's intention, this is basically a metaphor for animus and anima, the male and female side in each person, in this case in violent conflict with each other] and "Autopsy room four" .

I don't really have much more to say about the other stories, except that they were varied enough to keep my interest.

"Night shift" remains my favorite King short story collection, and "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" my least favorite --I consider the novellas a separate format, but if they go here then "Different seasons" is my second favorite.
This one was... somewhere in the middle with "Skeleton crew" and "Four past midnight", I guess.

I haven't read "Hearts in Atlantis", "Full dark, no stars" or "Just after sunset" yet.

[Fenril]

- Whisper of death. By Christopher Pike. After running out on her planned abortion, teenage Roxanne and her boyfriend return home only to find their town entirely deserted except for three other acquaintances. The only thing they seem to have in common is a sort-of-friend, the strange Betty Sue --the girl who supposedly commited suicide a couple weeks ago. The girl with strange supernatural powers...

Pike was one of my favorite Young Adult authors back when I was a teenager myself (with Lois Duncan, M. D. Spenser and ocassionally R. L. Stine close by), and I have to say his books hold up pretty well for an adult reader. This one, through, isn't one of his best --there are good moments here (the highlight is a series of short fairy-tales that are inserted into the novel, good nasty riffs in themselves), but the characters are fairly underdeveloped; this is especially evident in the villain, who needed to be a more complex character to make the twist ending work. As it is, this feels like a draft for a much better novel.

[Fenril]

- Friday night in Beast House, by Richard Laymon. Teen queen Alison agrees to date ordinary Mark in exchange for one favor: he'll help her sneak into the legendary Beast House at midnight. It's gonna be a night they'll never forget, no matter how badly they want to...

A novella that's set on the world of Laymon's Beast trilogy [The cellar; The beast house; The midnight tour. Apparently the little known chapbook "The night creature", as well] --since I only read "The cellar" I don't know where it fits in the series (maybe somewhere between the second and third books?). You... probably need to have read at least one of the books, as this one doesn't bother explaining what the deal with the Beast House actually is.

By itself this was actually a fun (read nasty) little surprise. It starts a bit weakly and frankly the first 100 pages have way too much filler (in particular a completely useless cameo from a policewoman that I assume was in the other books. Otherwise, why was she even in this?); however, the last 50 pages or so pick up the pace tremendously [for the record, this is where the leads *finally* have their date. See what I mean by "filler"?], and once again Laymon provides a wicked twist ending.

Comparing this to "Whisper of death", it's kinda embarassing that of the two short novels starring teenagers the book meant for actual teens is way more mature than the one intended for adults.

"Triage" and "Come out tonight" may have been a dissapointment, but this felt more like the kind of books that got me into Laymon in the first place. As a general rule, he seems to be much better with short works (slim novels and short stories), as it's usually the longer novels where he just loses control.

[Fenril]

- Twinkle, twinkle, "killer" Kane. By William Peter Blatty. Psychiatrist Hudson Kane is dispatched to a top-secret insane asylum for military patients to cure one very special case: an astronaut who almost wrecked the space race single-handledly [this novel was published in 1966]. But asylum, patients, the women's college next door and even Kane himself are not quite what they appear to be...

An early novel from the author of "The exorcist" and "Legion" --and like the latter this is basically a theological essay disguised as pulp horror (or pulp thriller. For a while, this book can't seem to make up its' mind what it wants to be). Besides being little known, this book has been panned by most critics and Blatty himself later dismissed it as a mere excercise for his latter "The ninth configuration" [given that Blatty himself directed the screen adaptations of "Legion" (as "The exorcist III") and "The ninth configuration", the themes in these novels seem to be an obsession of his]; unfairly so, in my opinion, because while it's true that this book is very rough in places (in particular the first two chapters) it actually improves as it goes on, and the central twist concerning Kane's identity is a clever bit, almost (not quite) on the level of a Levin or a Bloch.

Regarding it as a theology essay it has the same basic problem as C. S. Lewis and others of the field --a seeming inability to interpret religion as symbolic rather than as absolute truth. Or the insistence of starting with the conclusion and therein trying to justify the premises.

It's worth noting that his most famous work, "The exorcist", was also more of a novel about shame, regret and redemption disguised as horror, through the more famous movie adaptation is, of course, horror all the way through.

- Elk's run. By Joshua Hale Fialkov, with art by Noel Tuazon. Four teenagers start realizing the horrible truth behind the facade of their idyllic small town after witnessing a car accident and a lynch mob. They must now use all their resources to flee from an enemy they never thought would want them dead --their own parents.

Little-known comic book with a chilling story, a clever narration (alternating between different points of view, timelines and even different interpretations of the same event) and a thought-provoking metaphor about American society. While the art is a bit rough in places it gets the work done, and it definitely improves on multiple readings.

[Fenril]

Took a break from the paperbacks to read the complete short stories of Leopoldo María Panero --a Spanish author, who (to the best of my knowledge) hasn't been translated to english. It's hard to say this without sounding hiperbolic, but some of his stories are among the scariest things I've read so far --such as the stories "Acéfalo" (Headless), "Mi madre" (Mother --a story that mixes legends about the Amazons, the cult of Kali and a very psychosexual familial obsession), "Presentimiento de la locura" (Foreboding of insanity) and "Allá donde un hombre muere, las águilas se reúnen" (Where man dies, eagles gather --sort of a Clark Ashton Smith tale set in a Viking village).

Curiously, he himself has translated a lot of horror and fantasy titles from english to spanish, notably his antology "Visión de la literatura de terror angloamericana".

[Fenril]

- The travelling vampire show, by Richard Laymon. Three teenagers in 1963 plan to sneak in to see a midnight show claiming to exhibit an actual vampire in captivity. Since this is a Laymon book, there's plenty of rape and fake scares before they even make it to the show, and then there's lots of gore in the last twenty pages or so. Really, that's about it.

At this point I think I've lost most through not quite all patience with Laymon, and sum it up as people seek his work for the right reasons [action, gore, fairly clever interpretations of classic monsters...] but stay away for the wrong reasons [he's been critiziced for the excess of gore and the lack of a conscience. IMHO if his work makes it clear that that's what the story is all about, there's no point condemning it for doing exactly what it claims to do. What I'd say should be more alarming is: A) A thorough obsession with rape (as drama, as comedy, as pedophiliac fantasy --anything, but the guy was obssessed with it, and not even as a scare tactic. B) That after a while you realize that his obnoxious characters aren't even satirical or a swipe at stereotipical fiction characters --Laymon honestly believed that the world was like that].

Anyway, this one book was just... meh. It has some thrilling moments here and there, but it's very padded, full of implausible scenes (without a bit of the supernatural in them, by the way) and disturbing for the wrong reasons [i. e. It's not disturbing because of the high violence or the over the top villains, it's disturbing for casual quips from our "good guys" such as "You take most beautiful women, they are shit! But not [character who practically seduces her underage nephew]", or "You don't beat up people weaker than yourself... because they might tell on you"; etcetera].

[Fenril]

- The white people and other stories: best weird tales of Arthur Machen, vol. 2. Includes the short novels "The white people", "A fragment of life", "The coming of the terror", the short-short collections "The angels of Mons" and "Ornaments in Jade" and the short stories "The red hand", "The great return", "Out of the earth" and "The happy children". With an introduction by S. T. Joshi.

I think Arthur Machen is my favorite "cosmic horror" writer, with Jean Ray and Clark Ashton Smith a very close second and third. This is not to say he doesn't have his flaws, such as an ocassionally verbose writing style --the reason it took me so long to finish this collection.

Of the stories themselves, my favorites were: "The white people" (an impressive ocult tale, with several stories inside the main story; can't say I quite buy Joshi's interpretation of this tale, but then part of it's appeal is how it can lean itself to multiple interpretations), several entries in "Ornaments in Jade", the pieces "Torture" and "The ceremony" being my favorite (I also don't quite agree with Joshi's classifying of these as prose poems, as I think they work perfectly well as short-short stories but that's just me), "The coming of the terror" was the scariest entry (this time I agree with Joshi, the last paragraph is a bit dissapointing, through I think his calling it "lame" is too excesive) and the story "Out of the earth" (this actually makes a good companion piece to "The coming of the terror", and the ending is certainly chilling).

"A fragment of life" is very interesting, but it procedes at a glacial pace; same with "The red hand".

The rest are notable fantasy stories, some suprisingly modern in their sensibility.

[Fenril]

- In cold blood. Truman Capote. Novelized account of the real-life killing of a family in early 60's Kansas and the subsequent manhunt for and trial of the murderers.

Powerful both as a real-life crime account (which I'm not really fond of, through I must confess I've read a few) and as an essay on the ultimately banal nature of evil and violence. Certainly one of Capote's most memorable works, displaying a unique knack for dialogue and chracterization. Basically, a classic that's every bit as good as you've heard, and somehow remains powerful and relevant today.

[Fenril]

- Adrift on the haunted seas: the best short stories of William Hope Hodgson. A compilaton of several notable short stories (and a few poems) from Hodgson, quite possibly the master of Sea horror and one of the prime influences of Lovecraft's circle.

*Finally* finished this collection after having to take several breaks (more on that later); dunno if I agree with editor Douglas A. Anderson's asseveration that these are Hodgson's *best* stories ever, but this is a pretty good collection; and his introduction, while too short, does provide a few interesting tidbits.

Of the stories themselves --there are a couple duds in the mix, through that's only in the sense that they are dated: "The haunted Jarvee" (one of his stories starring detective Carnacki) and "The derelict" are both traditional haunting tales with a long conclusion attempting to give a scientific reason for the supernatural. As with a lot of late nineteenth-century stories with this pretention, the science used is so entrenched in then-popular fads such as Teosophy they become involuntarily hilarious in present times. "On the bridge" and "Through the vortex of a cyclone" are non-fiction accounts of maritime disasters; and while they are very well written and have a solid basis in reality (in fact the latter is autobiographic) --I think Edgar Allan Poe did it better with "A descent into the Maelstrom", in the sense that he archieved the same sense of wonder and terror in far less pages. There are a few non-horror stories, notably among them "The wild man of the sea" (a sympathetic piece about two outcasts, and a denouncing of olden superstitions that other pieces wallow in) and "The Shamracken homeward-bounder", which starts as a melancholy piece on old age and the hope of heaven through death, only to become a bitterly ironic tale of yet another sea disaster. There are several tales featuring the legendary Sargasso Sea --a real-life phenomenom that in Hodgson's hands became such a wondrous place as to be legitimately considered a fantasy landscape; of those stories the highlight for me was "The voice in the dawn", with its's subtle depiction of madness and isolation.

And then there are the stars of this collection: the proper tales of horror featuring all sorts of sea creatures. From classics like "The voice in the night" (a tale of mutants and fungi) to little-known pieces like "Demons of the sea" (a tale of demonic seals with human faces --this may sound ridiculous, but in the story proper the effect is truly disqueting) to my personal favorite: "The haunted Pampero", which feels strangely modern in its' twisting of hoary horror cliches of the twentietch century. It starts as what appears to be a "haunted boat" story and turns out to be a story about a were-shark. It's also one of the only two stories in this book with a notable female main character.


I also read "The wind-up bird chronicle", by Haruki Murakami (which took forever, as it's a trilogy printed in a single volume). I had never read anything by Murakami before, and have to say I was surprised by how good this was. It seemed quite distinctly Japanese (with its' liberal blending of slice-of-life anecdotes and, shall we say, "Lynch-ian" fantasy), which makes me wonder how he's an international best-seller.

[Fenril]

Merrick. By Anne Rice. In this sort-of crossover between Rice's famous "Vampire chronicles" and her lesser known "Mayfair witches" series, scholar-turned-vampire David Talbot seeks out the creole witch Merrick with an unusual request for her: that she summon the ghost of Claudia (the vampire child from "Interview with the vampire") on behalf of fellow vampire Louis. But as both already know from their shared past, trifling with spirits can have soul-shattering consequences for the living...

Finally finished this novel --I had actually kind of given up on Rice as early as "The vampire Lestat", but had bought this one mostly intrigued by how she'd handle witches. I have been told that the rest of the witch novels, as well as her one try at a mummy story, are actually terrible. Dunno about her assorted "angels and demons" stories.
In any case, I see the same qualities but especially the same flaws in this as in Lestat --some fascinating period horror (and in this case period dark fantasy) scenes… that are constantly interrupted by purple prose that thinks it's ponderous yet comes off as poorly written romance. To be fair, Rice is a far better narrator than most of her imitators, Stepehenie Meyer being the biggest offender. While the character Merrick is interesting enough on her own, she's quickly ensnared on the fundamental problem with this series: everybody keeps fawning over every single character around them, quite often in detriment to the story.

So... not recommended. To be fair it's most certainly not the worst thing I've ever read. Just... forgettable.

[Fenril]

- The ninth configuration. By William Peter Blatty. At a loss as to how to treat several military men (and one astronaut) suddenly stricken down with assorted manias, the Navy corps call in one psychiatrist Kane, who has a few theories to test. And a powerful delusion of his own.

A remake of his early “Twinkle, twinkle, ‘Killer’ Kane”, and which Blatty seems to have developed conflicting feelings about. In the novel proper (1980 edition), he denounces the “Twinkle” as having his best concept yet but a terrible style, and this novel as the definitive edition. Later, he confessed in interviews that he actually preferred the first novel. And the resulting film adaptation has been released under both titles. Moreover, he retroactively decided that this is the second chapter of “The exorcist” due to a character link (the astronaut here is the same one Regan threatens, apparently), and that “Legion” is the third chapter.

All such trivia aside, I think I actually preferred the first novel. Here, he strips away the subplot about the women’s college and leaves the main premise –insane or perhaps quite sane men debating basic theology with an earnest (or rather, wannabe) healer. Thing is, this isn’t anywhere as compelling as Blatty believes it to be, due to the insistence of using basic and by this point stubborn theological arguments –or dated, as the title refers to a theory about the necessary chemical components required for life to spring, but which had by 1978 (the year the novel was published) been discredited. And in place of the original’s story about the asylum we are given a new ending that breaks credibility –it’s not enough that Kane is an impostor, this time he’s been secretly watched over by a brother that he forgot he has. And he’s powerful enough to kill four people with his bare hands. Also, it seems that suicide is “giving up your life” (and therefore not a sin) if the deceased says it’s so (suicide as proof of devotion, such as was once reasoned in Oriental culture, apparently never crossed Blatty’s mind).
Basically, what we have here is a novel that wants to be so much more than just a pulp thriller, but which ends up collapsing on its’ own weight.
I’d stick with “The exorcist” and maybe the original Killer Kane.

[Fenril]

- The terror and other stories. By Arthur Machen. Finished this collection of short stories and novels back in December 29th, but since I was away on a trip with no internet connection I'm only posting this here now.

Once again, it's a mixed bag; "The terror" is... pretty much the same thing as "The coming of the terror", and to top it off Machen left in that really annoying last paragraph, so I think I'll stick with the first version, which is still a fine early "animal attack" story. "The Islington mistery" is a very unusual black-humor riff (well, unusual for Machen) and curiously it's one of the few Machen stories that was adapted to a movie --specifically the Mexican thriller "El esqueleto de la Señora Morales". There are several short horror riffs more in the stile of classic Machen such as "Opening the door", "Out of the picture", "Change" and "Ritual", and a few interesting experiments.

Then there is an introductions that's convinced me that S. T. Joshi is not my kind of literary critic.

So... I might or might not repeat this experiment this year, since I now have a new pile of old paperbacks (this year certain relatives got creative).