Story Review from Vastarien, Volume 1, Issue 2: Martin, Bendyk, Hand, and Waggoner

I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the second issue of Vastarien magazine, which if you haven’t yet checked out, you should. Here are my thoughts on the final four pieces in this issue.

“Lacan on Lynch: Viewing Twin Peaks Through a Psychoanalytic Lens” essay by Rob F. Martin

While I don’t know Lacan or his ideas, I do know Lynch and Twin Peaks. I found the ideas here very compelling, and useful for one way to understand Twin Peaks: The Return. Martin offers a truly bleak—to the point of despair—explanation for how what we see of Cooper relates to that of the first two seasons, and how in fact Cooper may have been trapped in the Black Lodge all along. Very intriguing ideas that I’d like to explore further.

“soul of a mannequin” poem by Justyna Bendyk

A poem about a doll moldering away in an attic, lost and forgotten by the child that once played with it. The doll just wants to be a toy again, picked up and held and played with. This one actually resonated with me. Very sad. Much better than those dreadful Toy Story movies.

“Shirley Jackson and That Old Black Magic” essay by Jill Hand

I will utter a heresy here: I have never actually been all that fond of Shirley Jackson’s longer work. I can see that she’s a terrific (if slightly erratic) short fiction writer, though she’s no Bradbury or King—but her novels have just never grabbed me. I think my own perspective is probably just too different from hers. But having said that, I always appreciate writers sharing about the key writers who influenced them, and agitating for why other readers should turn to these key authors. It’s a rousing defense for why one should read Shirley Jackson.

“How to Be a Horror Writer” short story by Tim Waggoner

This was bleak and sad and poignant. I would describe it as a kind of cosmic horror without any cosmic or supernatural elements whatsoever. Maybe I should describe it as an exploration of the bleakness of existence. Not just that existence is meaningless in the sense that there is no higher meaning to human existence, but that human existence is also horrible. It’s filled with loss and suffering and degradation, and almost all human systems of meaning are designed to plaster over this essential fact. Waggoner strips all this away. This is the story of a horror writer (I hope hope hope that this is not an autobiographical story but I fear it just might be) whose life heads steadily downhill with a rough family life, loss, divorce, mental illness, economic challenges, and many more elements my fragile psyche has probably blocked out. Reallygood. You should read this, but steel yourself first.

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Week 285 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Philipson, Wallace, Narnia, and Stone

Welcome to Week 285 of my horror short fiction review project! My favorite story of the week, hands down, was “cabin” by Soren Narnia. This is a really dark exploration of the survival of human consciousness after death, and what a kind of afterlife might be. Really dark stuff.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“War Against the Mafia” by Alan Philipson

This one was done in the style of a men’s adventure vigilante takes on the mob story. Here, the Dracula analogue is a hitman for the mafia in Las Vegas, who is attacked out of the blue by his boss’ nephew, who resents his reputation and influence. The opening gambit is the destruction of his four vampiric friends, though since the enemy didn’t know they were vampires, I don’t understand why they were taken out into the desert to be destroyed by the sun. If they were normal people they would have simply gotten a bad sunburn and dehydration, so what gives? In any case, I don’t quite understand the protagonist’s powers either, but it was still a fun story. Not great, but fun.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

“Akropolis” by Matt Wallace

Interesting and evocative. I don’t generally tend to like stories that are told outside of a standard chronology, I think it’s a technique that mostly works here. We follow the life of Danny, who as a small boy witnesses the fall of an apparent meteor that is actually the coming to Earth of an alien city that brings personal transformation for Danny over the course of his life, as well as the complete collapse of human civilization.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 2, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“cabin”

A story from the files of paranormal researcher Savid Doud, who was likely murdered by his colleague Aramis Churchton. (This is just a brief framing device at the outset of the story, but boy is it evocative!) Three divinity students who had been involved in a serious car accident that almost killed a boy are sent to a remote cabin in West Virginia to repent. One of the students seems to have killed himself at the cabin, a woman—who may be a nineteenth-century child murderess—appears in his stead. A defrocked priest named Blutaire is brought in to help with the puzzling situation; Blutaire brings in some members of a cult, the Messengers of the Path to sort things out (their remedy is likewise horrific). We learn some disturbing truths about the nature of the universe, the afterlife, and the survival of consciousness after death. Utterly fascinating stuff that I’d love to see explored further from some additional angles.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“The Bastet Society” by Sam Stone

A long one that was okay but not amazing. Skye is a free spirit who has started dating a man and he turns out to be the high priest (and an unaging one at that) of a secret society that worships cats. He’s also responsible for ushering in the new incarnations of the goddess Bastet when she is reborn. Guess what Skye is? Just okay.

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Buy the book on Amazon

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Story Review from Vastarien, Volume 1, Issue 2: Travis, Vasari, Gorman, and Wilkinson

I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the second issue of Vastarien magazine, which if you haven’t yet checked out, you should. Here are my thoughts on the next four pieces in this issue.

“Trigger” short story by Julie Travis

A very powerful short story about suicide and the methodical destruction of one’s body. I don’t want to say this is a step-by-step guidebook, but it very thoroughly walks through the philosophy of someone contemplating suicide and then taking that final step to ensure a successful death. Would be disturbing to many readers, I suspect.

“The Master Gardener” short story by Nicole Vasari

A museum has inherited an elderly eccentric’s art collection. The woman’s nephew is interested in one painting in particular, which that museum curator in charge of the new collection does not want to provide him any information on. I found it reminiscent in a way to The Picture of Dorian Gray.

“Parasitic Castration” poem by Amelia Gorman

I had to look this one up to fully understand the context of what I was reading. The Sacculina is a kind of parasite that infests some crabs. It’s horrific what it does to these things: it renders them infertile and in male crabs it not only castrates them but also transforms them into a kind of female crab, changing both their bodies and behaviors (I would say minds, but these are crabs we’re talking about). A human observer is reflecting on this in the poem, and possibly even trying to contract this parasite for himself, which is delightfully creepy.

“The November House” short story by Charles Wilkinson

What a wonderful story, and one so reminiscent of Ligotti. Mr. Plant is living in a rented house, though he cannot recall why he is doing so, or his history before his coming to the house. His health and physical mobility are growing ever more fragile, and eventually even walking up the stairs is mostly beyond him. His body is likewise…transforming in other ways. At the same time, a nearby liquor store insists on making weekly deliveries to stock his cellar (that he never actually even enters). Plant is drawn to interact with some of the other people in the neighborhood near his rented residence and that opens up even more mysteries about what is going on. This was excellent, and a quintessential Ligottian story done by someone other than Ligotti himself.

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Week 284 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Ditrich, Pugmire, Narnia, and Barrass

Welcome to Week 284 of my horror short fiction review project! All the stories this week were decent, though none truly knocked my socks off. My favorite was probably “The Hands That Reek and Smoke” by W. H. Pugmire. Corrupt and decadent artists who fall under the sway of dark forces are always good characters to build a story around.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“Pied” by Julie Ditrich

Here, Dracula is an immortal goth rocker (touring the European festival scene, of course), who was also the infamous Pied Piper of German folklore. His three brides (they’re in his band) were some of the original children he lured out of Hamelin, but they’re all grown up now, and somehow also immortal. Conflict arises when another goth rocker steals one of Drac’s songs and scores a huge hit with it. Doesn’t turn out well for that guy, as you can imagine. It’s wacky and silly but still enjoyable.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

[previously reviewed] “A Gentleman from Mexico” by Mark Samuels

“The Hands That Reek and Smoke” by W. H. Pugmire

An artist is inspired by Nyarlathotep, who seems to be some kind of cult leader-muse figure here, but of course the reader knows he is much more than that, and that the hands under those strange metallic gloves are probably…changed in some way. I liked it, like most of Wilum’s work, but calling the cult leader N. was just too on the nose.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 2, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“corpse”

A story about the long legacy of a convicted murderer who was electrocuted, though the actual execution was botched, which inflicted significant, unnecessary damage and pain. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the killer’s body didn’t decompose normally. This tale is narrated by the groundskeeper at the cemetery where he was buried. A decent one, though not one of Narnia’s most memorable.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Satisfaction Brought Him Back” by Glynn Owen Barrass

Tiberius is a cat who must save his owner Jasper, an occultist, from a Mythos beast that has been sent to kill him. Very straightforward story, but still enjoyable.

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Buy the book on Amazon

Buy the book on Amazon

Story Review from Vastarien, Volume 1, Issue 2: Parypinski, Stanton, Dioses, and Mountenay

I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the second issue of Vastarien magazine, which if you haven’t yet checked out, you should. Here are my thoughts on the first four pieces in this issue.

“Commencement” short story by Joanna Parypinski

The unnamed narrator is summoned to attend her sister’s high school graduation. These are invariably dreary affairs to be avoided at all cost, but this one is special. The sister has been attending the Academy, a mysterious school out in the desert that seems to have reconstituted itself after the place burned down decades prior, killing all the students and faculty. This new place is half Night Vale and half Hogwarts. It proceeds more or less predictably—I had hoped for some additional twist or cosmic reveal—but it was still enjoyable.

“Patent for an Artificial Uterus” short story by Max D. Stanton

Such a wonderful story. I’m a sucker for epistolary tales and this one is told entirely through a series of letters between an (unhinged) inventor of an artificial womb and the U.S. Patent Office, where he is applying for a patent for his invention in the mid-1950s. This is a classic case of a demonstrably unreliable narrator (he must be insane, right?), but is he describing events truthfully as things in objective reality actually occurred? If so, it’s quite a doozy. As he waits impatiently for faceless bureaucrats to process his paperwork, he continues writing, sharing more and more about his tragic life growing up in an orphanage. His insanity and ultimately, his hatred of women shines through with ever greater clarity as the story progresses. A tour de force.

“The Crafter of the World” poem by Ashley Dioses

A very short (eight-line) poem. I think it’s about the idea of God as the creator of the universe and the nature of reality. This one didn’t grab me, but I’m not a good judge of poetry.

“Bequeathing the World to Insects” essay by Christopher Mountenay

A brief exploration of the idea that the human species will one day become extinct, and while the Earth may not be destroyed or rendered unfit for life, humanity will no longer be part of the planet’s future history. We may in fact be followed by insects as the dominant species on Earth. I don’t really find that idea all that horrific, though maybe I should. Not a bad essay, but probably too brief for the big idea that it contains.

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Week 283 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Sequeira, Cornell, Sellar, Narnia, and Meikle

Welcome to Week 283 of my horror short fiction review project! Some interesting stories this week, though my favorite was likely “The Mysterious Affair at Slaine” by Jacqueline Sequeira and Philip Cornell. What can I say, I’m a sucker for Agatha Christie-style locked room mysteries, and when you add the cast of Dracula to the mix, it’s an obviously fun one.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“The Mysterious Affair at Slaine” by Jacqueline Sequeira and Philip Cornell

A bit of a classic English locked room mystery, as the Agatha Christie-esque title suggests. There’s nothing supernatural going on here, but all of the main characters from the original Dracula are here. Dracula is a visiting Romanian nobleman who has hired Renfield as his butler/driver/cook, and then Renfield is murdered during a party where they’re all in attendance. Fun.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

“Of Melei, of Ulthar” by Gord Sellar

Set in the Dreamlands, this is a very fuzzy story about some experiences of a seamstress from Ulthar. I’m just not much of a Dreamlands fan, and like a lot of stories set there, not much happens here.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 2, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“cult”

A story about a very nicely creepy apocalyptic cult operating in my neck of the woods (Washington, DC) call the Light Herders. They seem to have some knowledge of actual occult rituals. Sort of a low-key one, but effective nevertheless.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Bats in the Belfry” by William Meikle

A Carnacki story, which I always enjoy, and William Meikle is certainly a prolific (and good) writer of them. Carnacki is called out to a rural vicarage where the vicar is seeing bats that…aren’t actually bats, but something far worse. The cat plays a very minor role in the story, but it adds a nice creepy element, especially at the end.

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Buy the book on Amazon

Buy the book on Amazon

Book Review: Verushka by Jan Stinchcomb

Verushka
Jan Stinchcomb
JournalStone Publishing (July 7, 2023)
Reviewed by Andrew Byers

I was delighted to read Jan Stinchcomb’s Verushka, a multi-generational horror story about a being—once a woman named Verushka—who can’t leave a family alone. She’s going to take one of them for her purposes no matter what.

The novel begins with a fire that engulfs the home of a young couple, Jack and pregnant wife Caroline, and their young daughter Devon. The fire destroys everything they own and forces them to rent a cottage in a remote wooded area. It’s here that we first meet Verushka, though since much of this part of the story is told from Devon’s perspective—a highly effective choice—we don’t yet understand the nature of the threat Verushka poses.

Jack doesn’t really matter much to the overall story; he fathered Devon and that’s his role. Verushka is a horror story about women; it is a book centered on their concerns and unique situations. We then flash back to Elaine, a teenager in the late ‘60s about to come of age as a woman and leave her family to go off to college in the Bay area. She is the first member of the family to encounter Verushka, and will eventually give birth to Jack. Elaine’s unwitting entanglement with Verushka will have profound ramifications for her family yet to come in the decades that follow

Caroline is a young mother—eventually a single mother—and has all the worries about protecting her daughter that we would expect. We meet Devon at two points in her young life: first when she is a toddler and then later when she is thirteen, beginning to act out and striving to be accepted by her peers as a young woman.

And then, of course, we have Verushka herself, who is an ancient woman, though she has the appearance of an eternally young one, who has been ill-served by the being who made her the way she is, though she is anything but an innocent victim. We eventually learn Verushka’s origin—sad, horrific, chilling, and steeped in old faerie tales and the bloodiest of folk horror—but I won’t spoil it here. Verushka acts in her own best interests, and doesn’t mind destroying the lives of innocents to get her way.

Verushka is a hauntingly beautiful horror story that shifts seamlessly across time and space and perspectives. As you can tell from the previous description, this is a highly character- and atmosphere-driven novel that blends the modern and the medieval, as the ancient horrors of traditional fairy tales are brought into the modern world. Jan Stinchcomb has masterfully constructed a set of characters and a terrifying and relentless curse that follows a family across three generations. Definitely recommended.

This review originally appeared in Hellnotes.

Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 7: Bird, Thomas, Langan, and Files

I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the final four stories in this anthology.

“Gailestis” by Allyson Bird

Gerda and Kay are unhappy, dysfunctional orphan twins living in a world that seems to be slowly being taken over by a red weed of unknown origins. (It strikes me as a verrrrry slow sort of environmental apocalypse, perhaps.) Kay works as a gardener for an eccentric, wealthy doctor; Gerda agrees to work as a semi-nude artist’s model for the doctor so her brother can keep his job. Kay dies though, perhaps killed by some sort of parasite that is crawling beneath his skin. There are some interesting and evocative bits here, I just wish it all made more sense.

“The Prosthesis” by Jeffrey Thomas

Thomas works at a plant that manufactures all manner of medical prostheses, everything from a hand or eye to complete limbs, torsos, and even replacement infants. He is stealing these prostheses, one at a time. We eventually learn that Thomas had a stillborn twin brother, Mason. One day Thomas shows up at work with an injury on his wrist identical to what it looks like when a prosthetic hand is joined to a wrist. By the end of the story, we have Mason, seemingly alive and well, reading a newspaper story about Thomas having been killed by a security guard while attempting to steal a foot. Mason looks down and realizes that his own foot is missing. The tone and setting of a decayed urban wasteland are wonderfully Liggotian. This was perhaps the strongest story by Jeffrey Thomas that I’ve read—a really strong entry in the collection.

“Into the Darkness, Fearlessly” by John Langan

A fascinating character study. We open with the death of a relatively obscure horror author, Linus Price, in a tale told by Price’s friend and editor, Wrighton Smythe. Price was a mean-spirited alcoholic with a bitter ex-wife—a green card-seeking Polish beauty named Dominika—who had become unhealthily obsessed with a new writer, Suzanne Kowalczyk, who became the darling of the horror community before she went mad and murdered Price, who had been stalking her, before disappearing. Whew. That sounds like a bit of a soap opera, but I’m quickly summarizing the main characters. Smythe receives Price’s final book manuscript hand-delivered to his home by an unknown party (my money’s on Kowalczyk), which provides some interesting new tales interspersed with a very personal accounting of Price’s descent in madness, obsession, and hatred for Kowalczyk, who seems to have rapidly achieved the notoriety he always craved. There’s also a hallucinatory funeral, seemingly attended only by Smythe and Dominka, in which that pair have sex while pressed up against Price’s coffin after drinking copious amounts of wine that may have been laced with a narcotic. The final section of the novelette describes what happens after Smythe wakes up from a drunken stupor, but I suspect that section is intended as fiction, rather than as straight narrative, since it uses the same font as Price’s manuscript passages, leading to the question of who wrote this last piece? Did any of this actually happen? I am uncertain, but it’s all wonderfully done.

“Oubliette” by Gemma Files

What an amazing story. Perhaps my favorite in the collection, and that’s saying something because this was an unusually strong and imaginative collection of stories. Thordis Hendricks is a wealthy young woman who is placed in a live-in care program after two failed suicide attempts. She lives in an apartment under a doctor’s care (Dr. Corbray), plus she has a care worker (Yelena Rostov) who checks in on her daily; Thordis also records her dreams and other thoughts in a journal, which Yelena regularly reviews. A couple wrinkles quickly present themselves: Thordis is in Shumate House, a therapy center/program developed in the late 1970s to help rehabilitate some of the Jonestown survivors. Over the years, Shumate House also housed the sole survivor of another (fictional) cult, a kind of Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, a young woman who eventually killed herself in the apartment because of her regrets about not joining her comrades on their cosmic voyage. I think you can begin to see where this is going. Thordis is now living in the same apartment that the cult survivor did; everyone who has lived in this apartment  since then has ended up killing him/herself. Things aren’t looking so great for Thordis. This is almost a kind of ghost story, though I suspect it’s closer to a kind of spectral colonization of consciousness tale, if you catch my drift. I don’t want to spoil any more of this because it’s an amazingly effective tale—truly chilling, once you begin to see what’s going on here—that is mostly told through journal entries, emails, transcripts of therapy sessions, and the like. Really well done.

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Week 282 – Weekly Horror Short Story Reviews: Salmon, Schwader, Narnia, and Webb

Welcome to Week 282 of my weekly horror short fiction review project! My favorite story of the week, hands down, was Soren Narnia’s “bells,” about a series of increasingly creepy interactions with a homeless woman across the decades.

Dracula Unfanged, edited by Christopher Sequeira (IFWG Australia, 2022)

“The Angel of Death” by Andrew Salmon

Nominally set some time after the events of Dracula, though he has survived somehow and is working with international anarchists to assassinate various monarchs. The surviving vampire hunters must stop a plot to kill Queen Victoria as she is traveling via train. Also, Quincey Morris becomes a suicide bomber, which probably amused me more than it should have. This one was okay, but forced me to suspend my sense of disbelief too much.

The Book of Cthulhu II, edited by Ross E. Lockhart (Night Shade Books, 2022)

“Objects from the Gilman-Waite Collection” by Ann K. Schwader

An exploration of a museum’s collection of artifacts that—if you’re up on your Cthulhu Mythos—are the Deep One pieces of jewelry referenced in HPL’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth.” It’s really not good to examine these things too closely, despite what the docent might suggest…. Good, but not amazing, and I say that as someone who is a huge Schwader fan.

Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 2, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)

“bells”

Wow, this one was very creepy. The narrator’s grandfather encountered a homeless woman who seemed to need help, and allowed her to stay at his home for a night. The woman was deeply disturbed and disturbing, though not necessarily in a violent kind of way (it’s too easy to be disturbing simply by demonstrating violent intent). Now, decades later, this woman has returned. Really good stuff.

Tails of Terror: Stories of Cat-Themed Horror, edited by Brian M. Sammons (Golden Goblin Press, 2018)

“Palest of Humans” by Don Webb

Poe’s “The Black Cat” as told from the perspective of Pluto, the titular black cat. This is a really nicely told tale that ratchets up the horror and grimness of what’s going on in the story because Pluto really is an abused innocent here. Good example of what can be done when you tell a story from the perspective of an animal on the receiving end of human behavior.

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Buy the book on Amazon

Buy the book on Amazon

Book Review: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr., part 6: Nicolay, Strantzas, and Tremblay

I’m continuing my look at all things Thomas Ligotti-related by turning now to the wonderful tribute anthology The Grimscribe’s Puppets, compiled by the late, great Joe Pulver. If you haven’t already read this one, you’re missing out. Here are my thoughts on the next three stories in this anthology.

“Eyes Exchange Bank” by Scott Nicolay

Ray is a comparative literature grad student who is visiting his loser friend Danny after a breakup with his girlfriend Lisa. Ray travels into the decaying urban landscape of eastern Pennsylvania, periodically witnessing things that are just slightly off-kilter, as in, something weird just happened or Danny just made a brief but horrifying confession, but what was that all about? This is exactly the kind of physical geography that I have come to associate with Ligotti’s work, so a very well-done homage capturing that here. It’s almost a relief when Ray is put out of his misery when he is carried off inside a dying mall by eyeless grey things. Good stuff: really great characterization and setting—I can see these characters and places in my mind’s eye very clearly.

“By Invisible Hands” by Simon Strantzas

Wonderfully creepy. An aged puppetmaker is hired by the enigmatic and bedridden “Dr. Toth” to construct a marionette made from a human corpse. He is brought to and from Toth’s decaying mansion by an ominous chauffer. The puppetmaker agrees to build the marionette while also suffering from missing blocks of time/memory. He eventually discovers that this new marionette, Toth himself, the chauffer, and others he has built—but has no memory of doing so—are inhabited by outside, alien intelligences (clearly malign), and that he has built many of these puppets for them. He will also be building more of them in the future as he is returned to his home and the whole situation set up again at the end of the story. Great stuff.

“Where We Will All Be” by Paul Tremblay

Zane is a college student staying with his parents during Christmas break. He has ADHD and is currently off his meds (Ritalin) and self-medicating with caffeine. We learn how he came to be diagnosed as a child, and it’s an important plot point that Zane’s brain has always “worked differently” from other people’s brains. One day, Zane’s parents, and seemingly everyone else in their town—it’s unclear how far the problem extends—begin to travel lemming-like toward the source of a mysterious high-pitched electronic whine. Zane goes with his father, though unlike everyone else, Zane is unaffected. Eventually everyone just keeps walking into the sea, presumably to their deaths, trampling on those who fall, and possibly being devoured by the underwater shadows the size of submarines that Zane sees. Zane might just be the only person who survives. Really good stuff.

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