MYLAKHRION THE IMMORTAL by Brian Lumley

This is the story of a sorcerer’s, Teh Atht, search for immortality. He is the descendent of one of the most powerful sorcerer’s of all time, Mylakhrion. Teh Atht is plagued with a question. Why did Mylakhrion not discover the secret to immortality?

Teh Atht’s question takes him into the mountains where he performs the necessary rites to summon his ancestor and put the screws to his ghost.

Mylakhrion answers the question of immortality with a story of madness and obsession that ended with the slumbering Cthulhu; Cthulhu being the only true immortal known to exist, to have escaped the cold vastness of space and time.

The trouble is that once you have stood in audience of the Great Lord Cthulhu, you are changed forever. You can’t escape he who rules the lands of dreams.

Teh Atht soon learns that he has been playing with fire. Mylakhrion has discovered the secret of immortality, the immortality that is available to the week flesh of humanity. The secret is possession. Mylakhrion’s ghost must inhabit the body of a relative, and what relative better to possess than that of sorcerer.

Teh Atht believes he has escapes Mylakhrion’s plan. But has he? That is the question the reader is left to ponder as the story closes.

A good read. Check it out!

Lumley, Brian. “Mylakhrion the Immortal.” The House of Cthulhu: Tales of the Primal Land, Volume 1. New York: TOR, 1991. p. 162 - 172

Calls For Cthulhu

I found this today. I hope you enjoy it. There are many more where this came from. Check out http://www.callsforcthulhu.com/category/shows/.

THE THING IN THE WOODS by Harry Turtledove

This is an odd story with a twist at the end. It is about two young boys who like to stay up late playing a war game with dice. The competition between the pair is fierce. When it gets late and Tim has to ride home, they hear something in the woods. Geoffrey makes the absurd suggestion that it might be a werewolf.

If I write any more about this story, I will give a way the ending, which makes the story worth while.

So, I will say this, the writing is engaging and the story is a good addition to the Something Magic This Way Comes, which you should pick up. The stories that I’ve read so far are excellent: earlier reviews. I think that Turtledove does a great job of getting into the irrational mind of young boys. Both Tim and Geoffrey are well written and developed. However, I think that the world they live in could have been described in a more concrete way (yet this might give away the ending).

Turtledove, Harry. “The Thing in the Woods.” Something Magic This Way Comes. Ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Sarah A. Hoyt. New York: DAW, 2008.

THE SWARM by Frank Schatzing (Finished)

I have Northwest Airlines, stormy weather, and a delayed flight from Las Vegas back home this week, to thank for the extra (free?) time to finish The Swarm. My partner in crime and I wrapped up our vendor booth on Friday in record time. This was his sixth event in a row. He was burned out and wanted to catch an earlier flight. He ended up catching this original one. I stood stand-by for an early flight that had been delayed, but they were full up. So, I had a four original wait until my flight that turned into eight. What was crazy was that Sun Country had three flights come and go in that time. Next time, I’m flying Sun Country for sure!

I’m kind of sad that I’ve completed this novel so quickly. It was that good. I really think that it could have been a few hundred pages longer. I would have hung in there. As it stands the ending is felt a little flat, not what you what to hear for a commitment of almost 900 pages. A stylistic change in the writing occurred in the last 50 to 70 pages. I wasn’t really expecting a dream sequence or journal entries to summarize the final minutes of action. To me, the ending felt like Hollywood pandering.

Some of the reviews that I’ve read really go after the big chunks of science. I don’t know why. I found myself rushing though the character stuff to get to the next discussion of what it means to be intelligent or to posses consciousness or how DNA and RNA work in single celled organisms. The science evaluated this book from a simple disaster, the world is going to end, book into a master piece that should be read by every aspiring student or advocate of environmental ethics and animal (non-human) rights. The arguments put forward for the ethical treatment of non-humans and for a holistic view of the world we inhabit are superbly written.

I think that part of the reason that the character development was not as engaging as the science had to do with the infectious excitement that the characters had for their work and their stereotypical inability to connect on a personal level with other people. Case in point, Leon Anawak’s father dies. This section is a long development section that happens late in the book. Anawak tries to reconnect with his tribe and extended family at the funeral. He even goes out on a sled trip and talks with a shaman. However, he just can’t bring himself to feel passionately about being an Inuk, and so why should I. However, when is breaking down that was thought as the limits of memory and coming up with new theories, he is as animated as my cat at meal time.

I’m looking The Swarm on my desk and I’m sad that I will soon have to shelve it. Yes, it was that good! I hope that the page length will not keep you from sinking your teeth into this amazing book. It is both educational and entertaining. I can’t see you going wrong with his as your summer read.

Enjoy!

Schatzing, Frank. The Swarm. Trans. Sally-Ann Spencer. New York: HC, 2007.

THE SWARM by Frank Schatzing

This has to be one of the most amazing books that I have ever read. I should restate that. The Swarm is an amazing book that I’m currently reading. I have just finished the prologue, pages 2 – 13, and Part 1: Anomalies, pages 15 – 363. The total page count of The Swarm, the trade paperback version is 898. So far, I have loved every word. With novels, there seems to always be slow, dry sections of descriptive summary. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of descriptive summary going on in The Swarm, long detailed sections where characters impart their scientific knowledge to other less informed characters and sections where the narrator gives the reader background into situations or characters that you would not get any other way.

I’m not sure that I can do this book justice here. Several of my professors at Hamline University in the Masters of Fine Arts in Writing program have said that if you can summarize or reduce a novel to its plot alone than it is not good fiction. This is part of their argument against typical pulpy-styled genre fiction. Well, I’m happy to say that The Swarm approaches their definition good fiction, or at least deifies the negation. However, that does not mean that I can’t spin a little of the plot with the hope that The Swarm will find even more readers.

My favorite character out of the montage of personalities that are introduced in Part 1: Anomalies has to be Sigur Johanson. Johanson is a handsome biologist from Trondheim, Norway. His story begins when he is asked by a long time associate, Tina Lund, who works for the Norwegian national energy conglomerate. Johanson was asked to classify a strange new worm found in mass in Norwegian shelf clustered over methane hydrates. The company that Lund work’s for wants to start collecting the methane gas is escaping from the hydrates into the ocean. However, these worms need to be checked out.

The other character that I’ve fallen in love with is a young PHD in aquatic behavioral science specializing in whales, Leon Anawak. Anawak is complicated and troubled. He struggles with his Native American heritage. He is as passionate about his friends as he is about whales. Honestly, I had trouble with the back and forth between Johanson and Anawak. As much as I loved the ever cool and collected Johanson, I wanted more of Anawak. Anawak is not only a bright mind, but he is an adventurer and risk taker. He will take things into his own hands and is not willing to just sit around and wait for answers.

So what is going on? Well, the world is changing for the worse. This is an apocalyptic novel. The sea and the creature in it are rising up. The only question is why. Ultimately, this book will be about finding the root cause. However, the fist 360 pages are about the beginning of the end. Disjointed signs appear and no one person has all the answers or enough clues to piece together the coming destruction in the North Sea.

This is my first installment for The Swarm. I’ve already moved into Part 2. When I have finished Part 2, I will post again. This book is consuming my reading time. I don’t expect to post about much else until I have completely finished all 800 plus pages. So hang tight and The Soulless Machine Review will get back to short stories in late June or early July.

I must also say that I’m a really big fan of the Eco-Thriller. I hope that as more and more people come to terms with the destructive power of our environment that more novels and short stories in this genre will emerge. I’ve been trying to come up with a list of novels, movies, and short stories, what would fit into this genre.

Check this out (it is like parts of this book are comming true):
Scientists Discover Stinging Truths About Jellyfish Blooms In The Bering Sea
ScienceDaily (2008-05-31) -- A new study helps explain a cyclic increase and decrease of jellyfish populations, which transformed parts of the Bering Sea -- one of the United States' most productive fisheries -- into veritable jellytoriums during the 1990s.

Schatzing, Frank. The Swarm. Trans. Sally-Ann Spencer. New York: HC, 2007.

PS. Here are some other reviews by bloggers that I respect, if you can’t wait for me to finish the next 500 plus pages.

The Swarm Fantasybookspot
The Swarm by Frank Schatzing - Official sffworld.com review
Strange Horizons Reviews: The Swarm by Frank Schätzing, reviewed ...
The SF Site Featured Review: The Swarm
Biology in Science Fiction: Marine Biology of The Swarm

SUCKER by Neil Asher

If you have five minutes, you have time to enjoy Sucker, the short story that Neil Asher posted on his blog The Skinner on April 28, 2008, as gift to his loyal fans.

You’re wasting your time reading my little review when you could be reading his story. However, you must like what I have to say. So…

Sucker is the story of guy, a fat guy that does not like to be called fat, especially by his wife. We enter into their marriage on the day when he has decided that he has had enough. He puts a mashed potato filled fork into her eye. He then retrieves his favorite knife and begins to prepare her for the meat locker. I guess the saying would go: if you can’t live with her, eat her.

Then the door rings. Nice! Enter the Tyson Vacuum salesman. He had an appointment to meet with the wife and demonstrate the awesome power of its suction. He will not take no for an answer, he must demonstrate. He had an appointment after all.

I’m not going to ruin the rest. You will have to read it for you self. You can read it by clicking here: Sucker.

What I like about Asher’s short fiction is that he has the amazing ability to stay completely immersed in the scene, the moment, and show the action with very little summary or none at all. I have something to learn from that.

Enjoy!

Asher, Neil. Sucker. The Skinner

THE ROAD GOES EVER (NEVER) ON by Gray A. Braunbeck

This is an odd story that play its self out as a framing device for the collection of short stories. It runs pages (Ever On) 23 – 25 and (Never On) 305 – 306. The pages are connected with ellipses that are meant to imply that the stories in-between are connected in some way, in this case they are extended memories of those that the main character meets along the road in purgatory (If I’m wrong about this, I apologize. I’ve only read the two parts of this story and have not gotten to the others).

What I really like about this story is the road signs that appear: BLOODY AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT 300 YARDS and CAGE BUILT OUT OF CHILDREN’S BONES ON RIGHT 50 FEET AHEAD. These are creepy. They are also what I would think to expect to see along the roadside just out side of Hell.

It is not much of a story on its own. It is more like a moment in time, a good creepy, I’m glad I’m not that guy moment. It ends with the main character walking into the deep dark unknown. I think that this ending is supposed to give some kind of comfort after the walk of fire. I don’t know, again, I’ve not read enough of the other stories and this one just does not seem to stand on its own.

What is odd is that I was thinking about returning this book to the library today. It is due. However, the more I think about this story, the more I want to read at least one of the stories that fill the middle.

So (I love technology) I logged onto my account fro home and renewed the book. This edition also has a fold out of several full color illustration that inform the stories. I hope to find and read the ones about the clowns; Oooo, Oooo, and the one about the giant fossil of a human with wings that looks like it is 100 feet tall.

Check back this month for more from Escaping Purgatory.

Clark, Allen M. & Braunbeck, Gray A. “The Road Goes Ever On.” Escaping Purgatory. Eugene, Oregon: IFD Publishing, 2001. p 23 - 25

Clark, Allen M. & Braunbeck, Gray A. “The Road Goes Never On.” Escaping Purgatory. Eugene, Oregon: IFD Publishing, 2001. p 305 - 306

THE SOURCES OF THE NILE by Rick Hautala

You know what I like about the Minneapolis Central Library? I like that it is only two blocks from where I work and that after a long day of customers and whatever else, I can relax my way through the stacks looking for the orange spine label: “Short Stories.” I never go home empty handed.

This time I brought home several good looking short story collections, including Bedbugs. The cover caught my eye, old school black and white pencil, bugs and icky things, and a big raven out the window (referencing everyone’s favorite poem by Poe).

I flipped though the book and it is filled with these types of pictures in front of every story. I love pictures. It made me feel like a kid again with one of those haunted-I’m-not-going-to-sleep-tonight books.

The first story that jumped out at me was “The Sources of the Nile” because it was only five pagers and I was tired, wanted sleep, and had a big crazy day a head of me. It was great. It was more than great, it was exquisite. In five pages, Hautala established character, plot, and gave up some crazy details that made me squirm and put the book down and exclaim, “Wow! Hang on! What just happened?”

Not to spoil it (well, I’m going to spoil it), but this story is about a guy, a private Dick. He has been hired to spy on her husband and discover the truth, is he cheating? Well of course he is. We join the story at the point where the Dick is revealing his pictures to the wife.

The wife begins to cry! The Dick gets turned on, not because she is Kate Beckinsale hot, but because she is crying. See, he loves tears. He loves to taste, lick, and suck on women’s eyeballs, consuming their tears; yup, consuming their tears, and he sucks so hard that her eye pops out into his mouth.

It just gets better from there. You need to check out Hautala’s short stories. They are crazy good.

Hautala, Rick. “The Sources of the Nile.” Bedbugs. Abingdon: Cemetery Dance Publications, 1999. p 131-136

NO OIL PAINTING by Gary Fry

This is one of those stories that I’m going to end up thinking about for a long time. You know, there are just some stories out there that effortlessly hit home runs, all cylinders are firing, and it completely works. These stories haunt my own writing and make me question the effort that I put forth.

“No Oil Painting” is at its base a ghost story, a haunted hotel story. A family, a father, mother, and son, are traveling and end up at a particular hotel (I don’t think that it was named, now that I’m writing this), and the son ends up in a room with a picture of a scared girl above the mantel.

Okay, to understand the significance of the scared girl, you need to know why this family is on vacation. It seems that the father, a psychologist, has encouraged his, now 40 year old wife to undergo a facelift. In his wisdom, he knew that she would looks beaten up after the reconstruction. So, they all went on a vacation so that no one would have to see her black and blue face while she healed.

The narrator, the son, is at that age where he is wondering if he is attractive. This question seems to stem from his fathers obsession with how the mother looks. He doesn’t understand why his mother needed the surgery. He admits she does look happier now, which he confuses with younger.

The son likes to take pictures. He then likes to doctor them, add color, reformat the size, and even apply an oil paining option that antiques the pictures. The first night he says in the room with the girl’s photo, a ghost appears. The ghost is the girl in the photo. She wants to know who she really is, she wants to be shown. She asks it over and over. The son takes the ghosts picture and begin to doctor it, make it looks like the oil paintings that fill the set of the house. He buys a frame the next day. He believes that by removing her scar and turning her photo into an oil painting that he can show her who she is.

What I really love about Fry’s story is that it tackles vanity through the eyes of the son and through his experience with an angry spirit. By the end of the story, the reader knows what is up, but unfortunately the son is just beginning to learn. You just got to feel for the kid. He wants to be attractive. He wants to be told he good looking. He wants the approval of his father. Unfortunately, it seems that good looks and approval are one in the same in this family. I just hope that the son does not join the ghost, but it might already be too late.

Fry, Gary. “No Oil Painting.” PS Showcase #1: Sanity and Other. Hornsen, Great Britain: PS Publishing, 2007. p 47 - 67

THE RUINS by Scott Smith (Finished)

The Ruins is such a good beginning of spring book. Up here in Minnesota it is still really cold. Yes, cold. So, it was nice to read a book set in the heat of Mexico, with beaches, cocktails, and tropical rains.

Wait! What novel am I talking about? The Ruins is thrill fest of desperation. The first good half of the book was slow, sometimes painfully slow as we learn about each of the characters, where they are from, why they are in Mexico, who is sleeping with who, etc. The character development was good, intertwined with the action and plot. However, it was a little too heavy for me. I kind of knew that they were all going to die from page one. I was anxious for the deaths to start.

Death one, of the main character group, was on pages 378 – 386. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of other great stuff happened before someone we are supposed to care about dies. I’m just saying that waiting 378 pages for the killing to happen was a long time.

The monster, if you don’t all ready know, I’m going to spoil it for you here, is a plant, Little Shop of Horrors style. I love this plant. It is the perfect villain. Not only is the plan filled with extremely acidic sap that can burn though cloths and skin, but it moves and thinks like a predatory animal. Its flowers can mimic anything it hears, like speech, birds, and then somehow reorganize what it hears to horrific effect. These flowers can also produce any aroma that it has encountered, pie, fresh bread, and grilled meat, to make starving stomachs tighten and grumble.

In most horror stories, I find myself cheering on the monster. I want everyone to die, die, die. However, in this story, I was hopping that someone got away; someone helped the plant escape its confinement to the ruins. You know, a sequel of grand proportions: The Plant versus New York. However, The Ruins does not go down that gimmicky road. Instead it reaffirms that there are some things left in this world that you can’t escape from.

The sequel, however, is staged at the end of the book as a new group of hot young people march unknowingly up the hill to their doom. Also, there is the opportunity for the parents of all these young people to fall pray to the plant as the desperately try to discover what has happened to their sons and daughters.

I will just have to wait and see.

I sure hope that the movie lives up to the book. I know that this rarely happens, but the book is perfect for a movie. Don’t change a thing and it will be perfect!

Smith, Scott. The Ruins. New York: Vintage, 2007.

THE RUINS by Scott Smith pt 1

I’m half way through. Yes, I’m a very slow reader. I hope to finish it very soon. I’ve gone and gotten myself addicted to a new video game (bad Aaron). However, I think that after three weeks of game time, I’m ready to come back to the blogsiphere.

I have to say that I’m in love with this horror novel. It is has just the right amount of cheese for this horror fan. What do I mean buy that? Well, the characters are likable, but only enough that you somewhat care about how they die. No one has died yet. There is only a broken back, slicked up knee, and dehydration.

What I really like is the monster. I hope that I’m not giving much a way with this, but the big-bad is a plant, this red flowering vine that feeds off anything that it can touch. It also leans. You can’t fool it twice.

My favorite sections so far have to do with a handjob. Yup, there is handjob, a well written one. However, the next morning, well, the vine feed off the loosed sperm that spilled all over the floor of the tent and followed it right to the source.

I’m very much looking for ward to disconnecting from my video game obsession and getting back into short stories and this novel. With foreshowing complete after 200 plus pages, people will start to die painful horrible deaths, I just know it.

I will get back to short stories very soon. Until then, get a copy of The Ruins, it is going to change the way you think about horror.

Smith, Scott. The Ruins. New York: Vintage, 2007.

THE BOY IN ZAQUITOS by Bruce McAllister

I’m slowing down, which is due to reading The Ruins by Scott Smith in anticipation of the movie, The Ruins in theaters April 8th.

Anyway, my loving wife bought The Best American Short Stories 2007 for me last month for my birthday. I was hoping that because the collection was edited by the master of horror himself, Stephen King, that he would have the courage and the pull to select from outside the mainstream. The one story that does not come from the big fiction guns is McAllister’s, which was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction. So, I guess that I should count my lucky stars and believe that one out of twenty isn’t bad.

McAllister’s story is a timely one. The main character is an American patriot. He is the son of a retired military leader. He wants nothing more in the world than to serve his country in one of the big civilian intelligence agencies. However, his grades are not the best. He is not outstanding in anyway. While in college, he makes an important connection with one of his professors and is soon granted an interview.

The agency eventually finds a place for him. He is one of the rarest individuals on the planet. He is a carrier. He can contract the plague and spread it without himself getting sick, a Typhoid Mary. The United States then begins to use him to spread the plague and destabilize foreign governments. He is, however it is never said, an American terrorist.

What is brilliant about his story is the way in which it is told. It is a first person account of the adventures of a plague carrier told to a classroom of students. Through his account to the students, the reader comes to understand how he got himself into the plague carrier line of work and how he eventually is released from service.

In today’s political climate, I feel that this story is all too real. It rings of a corrupt government that is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives to ensure that the political experiment can continue.

This is an excellent story that is well worth your time.

McAllister, Bruce. The Boy in Zaquitos. The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) Ed. Stephen King. Series Ed. Heidi Pitlor. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2007. p. 248 – 267.

THE OUTSIDER by H. P. Lovecraft

This is a tale of mystery and alien strangeness. The narrator is a sad creature barely human who has been raised in complete seclusion. He does not know his keepers, but his every need, other than society, is looked after with great care. He has access to a large and very old library of strange moldy texts.

He knows nothing of himself other than he is unhappy. He does not even know where he was born. He spends his days wandering the castle until he happens upon a stone portal with alien carvings. He goes though and makes this way up a ghastly and terrible stair case ending in a trap door. And even though he climbed darkness loomed.

What drives this character to keep going into the unknown is mystery. He has seen signs, warnings that what is coming will destroy any remaining sanity he has left. Yet, he trudges on through the darkness and into a room filled with some abject horror. He even reaches out to touch one of it gruesome paws before he turns and runs for his life.

The Outsider is for those of us who have dreamed that those who raised us are mysterious and incompressible. When we finally forced to face our parents, truly understand who they are and what they are about, we are faced with a shockingly realization that we may never understand them. We can only see monsters and wonder how they came to care so deeply for us. This new horrifying knowledge can either undo us as it has The Outsider’s narrator, or we can face it head on.

References to: Hadoth by the Nile, the catacombs of Nephren-Ka, tombs of Neb, feasts of Nitokris

Mythos Rating: 5 out of 10 tentacles

Lovecraft, H. P., “The Outsider.” The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. New York: Del Rey, 1982. p. 37 - 41

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH by Edgar Allan Poe

With all the new stories being written and published everyday, I sometimes for get the power of Poe. Poe, for me, is the foundation of American Macabre. He paved the way for literary hero H.P. Lovecraft and many others.

His story The Masque of the Red Death (which you can read online) is one of his finest works that, in my opinion, inspired Robert W. Chambers to create the stories of the King in Yellow who Mythos fans know as Hastur originally credited by Ambrose Bierce.

The Masque of the Red Death is in my mind a great political story. It is the story of Prince Prospero’s decadence and naïveté that the concerns of the people are not the concerns of the state (a lesson that political leaders seem to have to learn over and over again ignoring history).

Prince Prospero thought that he could pack up a thousand of his closet friends, courtiers, and entertainers, taken them into seclusion, and wait out the “Red Death,” which had killed over half of the population of his kingdom. You know ho the story goes, Prince Prospero is wrong and pays for it with his life.

The lesson in this dark tale is that walling your self off and hiding from the concerns of the world will not work. Action could have been taken. Prince Prospero could have done what was right, fought the good fight, and help his people. Problems just don’t go away by ignoring them; in fact, those ignored problems tend to sprawl out of control when left unchecked.

As a writer, I want so badly to be able to say things like this in my fiction without saying them. It is a skill that I am still working on. Poe does not come out and say, “You will be sorry,” instead he shows it though drama.

Wow, I’m just too heavy handed. I want to know that when some one reads my work that the message is clear. I don’t have a lot of patience to write the magnificent descriptions that Poe has in this story of each of the partitioned rooms. This is my failing as a writer. I love to read these descriptions, but I don’t like to write them. I would rather focus on dialogue, which is absent in this story. What the hell is wrong with me? The mantra is Show Don't Tell, Show Don't Tell.

Anyway, The Masque of the Red Death is a classic that any writer should read. It is a tightly packed death march of doom. Read it on line: http://poestories.com/text.php?file=masque

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Masque of the Red Death.” Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems. Castle Books: New Jersey, 2001. p 251 - 255

IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON by Robert W. Chambers

The power of one’s own imagination can be crippling to the mind. Sometimes you are your own worst enemy. In this case, the narrator interpreted a look; a look that he felt contained a level of malevolence; a look from a church organist.

The majority of this story is spent tracking the organist and then running from the organist. It never becomes clear what set the organist off, made him pick on the narrator, but it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that the narrator is obsessed. He has to know why he feels that the organist is up to something evil that only he can see and hear in the music. The narrator feels that it is his duty to help his congregation by reveling and purging this evil.

Then the narrator looses track of the organist only to then be stalked by him all the way home to The Court of the Dragon, which disappointingly is just a court yard with a dragon archway. Perhaps the archway is evil, but its presence is played up in any significant way, the archway just is. The read might think that the archway is evil, I mean, it is locked and keeps our narrator from escaping the organist. Still, it is not animated and it is not described in much detail.

I never read a story that contained an evil organist, but why not an organist? The haunting sounds on those large pipes can seem very evil. And for this reason, I like the story. However, the ending device of waking up and having the story basically start over is a tired one. I wonder how fresh this device was when this story was first published about 1895?

Chambers, Robert W. “In the Court of the Dragon.” The Yellow Sign and Other Stories: The Complete Weird Tales of Robert W. Chambers. Ed. S.T. Joshi. Chaosium, Inc. 2004 p. 47 - 53

A STUDY IN EMERALD by Neil Gaiman

This is change in pace from all the cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk as of late. This story presumably takes place in 1881.

What I like about Mythos stories is that you can always tell the good ones from the bad ones. The good ones are all written from the first person witness. The reader gets to tag along on an adventure into the strange and demented.

In Gaiman’s addition to the ever growing Mythos, the Old Ones are among us. As in some of Shakespeare’s plays, a comedy troop tells the truth that can not be uttered: “… the Old Ones whose coming was foretold, returning to us from R’lyeth, and from dim Carcosa, and from the great plains of Leng…” had returned years ago and had taken up place of power and influence.

In this story, the Old Ones are the establishment. One has been killed and a very Sherlock Homes and Watson like duo seek out the murderer though precise tracking of clues. However, this Homes, meeting his Professor James Moriarty, is out eluded. The murderer leaves a letter that explains how he was able to out deduct our detective.

Again, I wish I had written this story. The language feels authentic and appropriate for Lovecraftian fan fiction. It has a quick pass and engaging plot. It also has a new twist, Old Ones as world leaders and peace keepers (there is no war under their rule) that brings needed fire back to the subject matter.

Well done!

Gaiman, Neil. “A Study in Emerald.” Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. p. 1 – 25

NEEDLES by Jens Rushing

Art by Jens Rushing

Need something to distract you for a few minutes? Relax and read Needles online at http://www.jensrushing.com/. It is short, about 600 words long according to the author.

It is a strange scene. Have you ever wondered what would happen if some one stuck you with a needle and it allows something crawl out of your body?

Well, what do you mean no?

What I really like about this short-short is that it is a full scene. I could see it as a short film, a Lovecraftian short film.

Okay, you’ve now spent about as much time reading this post as it would take you read his story. So, go read it!

Read it online here: Needles

Rushing, Jens. Needles

PROMISE BREAKER by Chris Adrian

Demonic possession of children has always given me the creeps. Perhaps possession is not what is really the problem with Carl, in “Promise Breaker” by Chris Adrian, but it really looks that way.

There is something wrong with Carl. His father and grandfather took him to the hospital where no one was able to give an explanation. The doctors just diagnosed him with an “altered mental state.” No treatments or cures could be offered. The staff of the hospital is fearful of Carl.

Carl spouting strange things in a voice that sounds like radio static, “We are the dead, and what is a needle compared to a four-hundred-thousand-pound airplane? Or two? Poke away, physician. You can’t hurt us like that.”

As the story continues, it becomes clear that part of Carl’s problem has to do with 9/11 and the destruction of the Towers. It seems likely that Carl is possessed by the angry spirits of those killed in the attack. These spirits are calling for revenge and for blood. However, these spirits are not clear on whose blood they are calling.

This story is told from the perspective of Carl’s father. There are a lot of father’s in this story. It gets a tad confusing when the narrator talks about his father, Carl’s grandfather, but it touching, and there are two examples of how men handle grief.

Carl’s father is full of hope. He does not listen to his father or the doctors. He prods Carl and plays along with the voices. He lies to Carl, when Carl is present and the voice have gone, telling him that he has narcolepsy and that he sleeps a lot.

Carl’s grandfather, the narrator’s father, uses hard work, like chopping wood to avoid the situation. He does not humor Carl or the voices. He believes the doctors when they tell him that Carl could be faking the whole thing.

Still there is something in the title that makes me wonder what else is going on. Also, the voices blame the father for something, Carl’s mother’s death, 9/11, something big. It seems that the voices what something from Carl’s father.

The ending of the story is bloody and shocking. I’m still not sure that I totally understand it, but it is a powerful symbol.

Adrian, Chris. “Promise Breaker.” Esquire. December 2007, vol 148, no 6. p. 141 – 154

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LAST RESPECTS by D.K. Thompson

I’m not big on vampire stories. Many vampire stories now days are about the vampires that love humanity and try to live with them. Crazy talk, if you ask me.

I think that is why I like Last Respects. Thompson’s story is from the perspective a grandfather that is trying to spoil his children. They are all vampires. They are on a kind of farm with live stock. The story has two aspects that I really like, one is craft and the other is content.

The craft in the story is excellent. The story begins simply with the grandfather thinking about his people and reflecting on his wife who has recently passed on. The action of the story is a dinner. At first is seems that the children are tearing apart small animals, live stock. However, by the end of the story the reader is lead to understand that the live stock is something other than pigs, sheep, or cows. The craft is how slowly Thompson reveals the identity of the live stock, and the narrator never says it, the reader just knows through the little details. However, I didn’t need the extra push that Thompson provides, that one of the characters wants to only feed on the other type of live stock, in this case non-human live stock.

The other aspect that I really liked was the references to The Last Supper. In the mythology of the story, humanity misunderstood Jesus’ message. He did not come to save humanity but to save vampires. It seems a little heavy handed, but I like that. The whole communion thing has always bugged me. Wine = blood. Bread = Flesh. Sounds like vampirism to me, cannibalism at best.

If you’re in the mood for a vampire story, then Last Respects is well worth your time. read it online by licking: Last Respects.

Thompson, D.K. Last Respects. Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest. Apex Online Archives

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TEINDS by Sonya Taaffe

If you are looking for a quick, creepy, and enjoyable read, this it. “Teinds” can be found online at Strange Horizons.

It may be short, but it is good. The story is like a dream. When I finished, I could remember a car accident, a relationship, fire, death, flying through the windshield, candy-striped socks, scars, and a burning desire.

Reading this story was so much like a dream that I do not want to reread it for understanding. I want the lingering memory of it. I want the strange details to circle around in my mind with questions, who died, who lived, who is the narrator, is someone still in danger. I like that it is all mixed up in my mind after my first reading, that it is not crystal clear.

The story became clearer after looking up the word Teind. It means to tithe. Going deeper still, it is a payment due to the devil or the fairies every seven years. There is a lot taken in this short story and a lot given. The devil will have what is due unto him one way or another.

If you have five minutes, reading this story is putting those minutes to good use.

Taaffe, Sonya. “Teinds.” Strange Horizons

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