Splatterpunk #2 (2013)

Splatterpunk Zine #2 (2013). Pp. 40. £2.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Splatterpunk is a sub-genre of horror. It is, as many genres are, difficult to define exactly but the tone of this, the second issue of a lively little magazine dedicated to the art form, is horror that often involves people rather than monsters (in the traditional sense). It is no-nonsense and straightforward, but his doesn’t mean that the literary tone of Splatterpunk magazine is poor, by no means. All the stories, reviews and interviews are well written; the fiction is logical and character-driven. The prose itself is direct, cut to the bone—as are many of the protagonists—and compelling. This magazine exudes energy and enthusiasm; it is a labour of love. A quote on the cover by horror writer Wrath James White states that Splatterpunk makes him “nostalgic”, and I understand what he means. This is a true small press production: short, sharp, well-illustrated and with the feel of the homemade, although far from homemade in quality.

Thompson, Entanglement (2012)

Douglas Thompson, Entanglement. Elsewhen Press, 2012. Pp. 288. ISBN 9781908168054 print/9781908168153 e-book. $15.99/$3.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Caveat: My own Exaggerated Press published Douglas Thompson’s novel Apoidea in 2011. I have endeavoured to offer a fair and unbiased review of this novel.

Entanglement is an intelligent, adult science fiction novel that blends the new with the old. Like all good SF, its futuristic technologies are founded on present day developments and theories. Its foundation, therefore, is solid. At the same time, Entanglement is imbued with a Golden Age sense of wonder. There are moments when it possesses an almost Wellsian feel, moments that are Swift-like in their satiric incisiveness, then others when it reminded me of the great Robert Silverberg.

Bogle, Frank Herbert (2012)

Bob R Bogle, Frank Herbert: The Works. Self-published, 2012. Pp. c.760. ISBN 978-0-9855893-0-1. $6.50.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Of one thing, there can be no doubt, this biography is a labour of love. Frank Herbert: The Works is an overview of the life and written output of one of the most influential of post-war science fiction writers. Written in a clear, readable style, it is at once a fascinating account of the main points in Herbert’s life and an astonishingly in-depth analysis of his stories.

Sales (ed.), Rocket Science (2012)

Ian Sales (ed.), Rocket Science. Mutation Press, 2012. Pp. 314. ISBN 978-1-907553-03-5. £8.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

This is a drop of the hard stuff, raw science fiction, where the science informs and dominates. There are, as the editor points out in his introduction, no space ships in this book. The void is not seen as an ocean traversed by submarines and battleships with rocket engines, but a totally alien, inhospitable, nightmarish environment in which man struggles to travel, plunder, colonise and simply survive.

I approached the book with trepidation. Yes, I cut my reading teeth on Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein (they were all still very much alive and busy writing when I was a callow youth), I loved Niven, Leinster and Clement and will even dip in the odd Stephen Baxter now and then but I am usually more interested in the philosophical, political and sociological side of science fiction. Yet I was immediately at home here, comfortable and in many cases utterly riveted.

Hook, Ponthe Oldenguine (2010)

Andrew Hook, Ponthe Oldenguine. Atomic Fez Publishing, 2010. Pp. 176. ISBN 9780981159782. $16.99 / £9.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood (allegedly)

What is the truth? Is there any such thing? Is the truth what we make it ourselves, is it a constant or does it shape itself to fit whatever reality we want to believe in? This is one of the questions posed by the outlandish, funny and original novella, Ponthe Oldenguine. Even the book’s title is an anagram, possibly. Everything in these pages is a puzzle, a game, and a highly entertaining one at that.

Set in Norwich, Ponthe Oldenguine is a first person narrative written by a disillusioned journalist who goes by the unlikely name of Andrew Hook—which, of course, is probably a pseudonym. Hook is bored, trapped in a hack role in a local newspaper. Then he hits on the idea of repeating George Orwell’s experiment of living among the homeless, a sort of Down and Out in Norfolk. He will sleep rough, well, at night certainly, his need of modern convenience and luxury preclude a total immersion in that cold, squalid and unpleasant world.

A chance meeting with a real homeless man with whom he shares a doorway, and who appears to know more about the book’s hero (is that the right word?) than is healthy, leads Hook into a labyrinthine journey through a number of versions of Oldenguine’s life. All of them involve the man’s efforts to revolutionise BBC television programming with a series of increasingly ludicrous scripts.

Many of these scripts were produced, allegedly, but quickly dropped. Or were they? Produced or dropped that is. Internet searches reveal nothing, but then, can the Internet be trusted? Surely Oldenguine’s claims of persecution and conspiracy can explain that away. Or can they?

Oh, and about Oldenguine 's homeless status...

All the time, the narrator finds his own world dissolving into a chaotic splintering of the borders between truth and lie, while the borders between his own and Oldenguine’s life seems to be blurring. Even Hook’s girlfriend seems to know more than she is letting on and living another life that the narrator knows nothing about. Or perhaps she is simply living her life.

To add insult to Hook’s injury, including the contempt for him displayed by the staff of the Greggs bakery opposite the doorway he shares with Oldenguine, the book is littered with asides from Hook’s editor, snide comments, aspersions and downright insult.

So, we have a heady mix, the ubiquitous small press hero, at war with the world, awful to his long-suffering girlfriend, gauche and single-minded, plunged into a mishmash of truth and lie and half-truth and semi-lie and wild ideas and wilder conspiracies while, all the time, starkly, bleakly, the truth is staring us in the face.

Truth is what we all make it, whether an embellished yarn told to our mates in the pub or what those in power decide we need to hear. And, especially these days, it is the oddly ordered universe created by the media. Interesting then that Oldenguine’s own mad journey was within the world of television, which in itself is purveyor of fantasy, because surely nothing, even so-called reality, is the bare truth. Surely everything it touches is dramatised, scripted, air-brushed and packaged to make it work.

Ponthe Oldenguine reminded me of a raft of so-called true memoires published at the end of the last century, all written by people (mostly men of course) claiming to have been operatives in some elite wing of the armed forces or secret service. On being challenged for proof that they were even in a particular organisation, because no evidence existed, no mention made of them in any records, their reply would invariably be that “it was so secret that all records were destroyed”.

In the end we can prove or disprove nothing because there will always be a Ponthe Oldenguine who will argue that left is right and up is down and that all evidence has been expunged and all we can do its trust him...

So, don't believe a word, but please believe me when I tell you, that Ponthe Oldenguine does exist and is one entertaining, ambiguous and funny book.

Honest.

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Rauch, Laredo (2008)

Tony Rauch, Laredo. Eraserhead Press, 2008. Pp. 201. ISBN 1-933929-72-3. $10.95.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

A lot of fiction is described, with varying degrees of accuracy, as dreamlike. In this case, however, dreamlike is a very accurate description indeed. Laredo is a bizarre, surreal but often highly funny and entertaining work. There is seldom any sense or logic, sometimes no coherence, yet as I set off on this odd, odd journey, I found the writing was so utterly compelling I simply had to know what the next story was going to show me. What are these stories about? Does it matter? They are random, splintered fragments of... well, it’s hard to say really. Sometimes Rauch’s stories follow a narrative stream and some seem to be stream of consciousness torrents of imagery and thought.

The opening story is a funny, philosophical discussion between a man and his ex-girlfriend. The problem is that the ex-girlfriend has shrunk to the size of an ant and discovered that far from being a terrifying experience it is actually quite enlightening and comfortable. ‘Once I saw a pretty girl’ draws us back into a semblance of the real world of urine stinking bus stations and infatuation. In ‘Saturday Splendour’ the narrator goes on an insane high speed ride with his brother-in-law. ‘The strange green moss of my discontent’ begins with the discovery of a weird growth on the living room walls and quickly spirals into Rauch-ian madness.

‘Analonia’ has a Kafka-esque metamorphosis that involves extra eyes and mouths. In ‘Happy’ a young man discovers that his father has turned into a fish, and there is a possibility that ‘The President may be shrinking’. And so it goes on, bizarre conversations, trains of events that are described with gleeful breathlessness. There are crashes, apocalyptic and intricately choreographed fights and domino-like disasters and that build to impossible and catastrophic climaxes.

Then there are the lists, fascinating, intense, astounding lists.

Tony Rauch writes in a straightforward, simple very clear style. His American rhythms and slang enhance the story telling.

The cover illustrations and occasional illustrations look to be stills from a Land of the Giants style film or television series, featuring a group of mouse-sized humans attempting to bring mischief to us normal sized mortals. Other pictures, such what looks like a wrestling class, have a surreal quality enhanced by the fact that although they were originally devoid of any irony but now seem utterly bizarre. The publisher, Eraserhead Press, deals exclusively with absurdist fiction and it is good to see this area of literature embraced, encouraged, packaged and delivered to a world cursed with literary blandness.

So, did I enjoy Laredo? Because of the review requirement to read the book from cover to cover, the strange procession of oddities, nonsense, absurdity and surrealism became somewhat overwhelming and meant that after a while, I could not enjoy each story on its own merit. So a word of advice, dip in and out, work your way through slowly, sporadically and that way you can appreciate each tale of what it is.

For me there is a lack of emotional engagement in many of the stories. This is not down to bad writing because there is no bad writing here, it is, rather, the nature of these tales, the odd world of the dream where people are suddenly rowing boats through the sky, or clowns and other circus acts are waging war in the street, make it difficult to really get under the skin of Rauch’s characters. It was something that I came to miss as I spent more and more time with the book.

So, don’t approach Laredo looking for an intense emotional rollercoaster, board it looking for a wild ride through the world of the dream, a world in which logic plays little part and the unexpected is part of the fabric of its universe.

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Solomon, Visitors to the Inner Earth (2011)

Professor Solomon, Visitors to the Inner Earth. Top Hat Press, 2011. Pp. 314. ISBN 978-0912509105. $16.00.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

At first glance Visitors to the Inner Earth by Professor Solomon looks a bit like one of Terry Deary’s Horrible Histories. The photo of the author on the back cover, preparing to enter a cave and wearing a tool vest, hard hat and dapper shirt and tie as well as the light-hearted cover illustration, all help maintain the impression that this is a tongue-in-cheek visit with some of those who claim to have travelled deep into the earth and found remarkable things there.

Not so.

Wilson, They Had Goat Heads (2010)

D. Harlan Wilson, They Had Goat Heads. Atlatl Press, 2010. Pp. 148. ISBN 9780982628126. $12.00.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

One of my favourite albums is Rain Dogs by the unique Tom Waits. From the first track you are transported into a dark, surreal, noir-ish universe of accordion-playing slaughterhouse workers, ships captained by one-eyed dwarves, a woman with a set of tear tattoos (one for every year he's away, she says) and the most menacing version of ‘The Rose of Tralee’ you are ever likely to hear. Why am I muttering about Tom Waits when I should be reviewing D. Harlan Wilson’s collection, They Had Goat Heads? Well, it’s because this book took me instantly into that dark, threatening, often incomprehensible, Waitsian world. In fact, I had the album’s songs spiralling through my head all the time I was reading the book.

They Had Goat Heads is best swallowed whole. A set of individual stories, vignettes, flash fictions and single-sentence narratives, it is by turns menacing, hilarious, eccentric, surreal and downright incomprehensible. Taken as a standard collection the book is difficult and a little too splintered to be fully appreciated, but as a complete work it is almost an epic poem of the absurd.

Kafka-esque enigmas litter the book, flavoured darkly with hints of menace. For example in ‘PO Box 455’, the narrator visits a post office and finds himself confronted by layers of ludicrous bureaucracy which include a visit to the Key Insertion Room, where keys are, well, inserted. Every so often a trapdoor slides open in the ceiling, then slides shut again, a touch of delicious menace that unnerves as well as puzzles. In fact this entire story could be read as a satire on the plethora of mostly unnecessary processes and procedures that control the modern world and end up achieving nothing other than the fulfilment of their own self-contained existence.

Two excellent stories provide interludes of Pythonesque humour. The first is ‘The Arrest’ in which a number of unnamed characters attempt to arrest each other with increasingly farcical violence. The story is told with great comedic energy and reminded me in many ways of the opening passages of Joseph Heller’s Something Happened (read it as well as this book and you’ll see what I mean). The second stand-out comedy was ‘The Storyteller’ in which the narrator is pursued and beaten down by a colleague who insists on telling him a story.

‘The Kerosene Lantern Tour’ is a further mix of humour and utter futility. A guided tour of a lantern is now in its 86th day and begins to fall apart as the tourist themselves engage in the most bizarre activities and the guides run out of things to say. ‘Strongmen and Motorcycles (and Monkeys Too)’ has one of he best first lines I have ever read, and it maybe it is true. ‘Balloon’ asks an interesting question about the nature of murder.

Lurking in the midst of all this insanity and mayhem is a graphic story called ‘The Sister’, illustrated with unnerving skill by Skye Thorstenson. This tale is an unsettling slice of very black humour and horror in which atrocity is piled on atrocity with a matter-of-factness that makes the darkness even more disturbing.

While we’re on the subject of illustration, the book’s cover art (the work of Brandon Duncan) is delightfully surreal and its orange brown and yellow colour-scheme gives it a distinctly pulp-feel—an irony in itself because pulp fiction this book is not.

The narrative style is simplistic yet complex, detailed descriptions of the strange, conversations, rituals and actions of the protagonists, reminiscent of a cross-eyed, cross-tempered Ben Turpin berating Laurel and Hardy with an angry “You gave to him and he gave to you and you gave to him, you’re all nuts!” Many of the stories have no obvious plot or direction, yet, as stated earlier, reading the book as a whole, complex work rather than a dip-in collection gives a sense of the absurdity of the world in which we live, the pointlessness of bureaucracy and, sadly, our own obsessions and actions, and the random nature of life itself.

Often infuriating and puzzling, but glorious anarchic, satisfyingly different and immensely rewarding, They Had Goat Heads is not an easy read, but then shouldn’t difficult be an essential part of our reading experience?

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Greatest Uncommon Denominator #5 (2010)

Greatest Uncommon Denominator (GUD), issue 5 (2010). Pp. 200. $3.50 PDF / $12 print.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Stephen Hawking is reported as saying that if we find intelligent life out there somewhere, we should not attempt to make contact, presumably because to do so would be very dangerous indeed. Well, T F Davenport’s story ‘Nature’s Children’ makes abundantly clear some of the potential perils and disasters inherent in inter-species contact, not least the complete misunderstanding and incomprehension on all sides when faced with alien culture, civilisation and behaviour. The story is, quite frankly, a masterpiece, complex, beautifully observed and set against a vivid, lush backdrop of a planet seething with life, both animal and vegetable. It also sets the standard for this impressive, but sadly (at least to me) unknown journal, GUD.

Hughes, Postmodern Mariner (2008)

Rhys Hughes, The Postmodern Mariner. Screaming Dreams, 2008. Pp. 160. ISBN 9780955518522. £7.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

A delight, that’s what this book is. Funny, touching and as easily digestible as Frabjal Troose’s ginger biscuit moon that hangs over Rommel Cobra’s Sea of Tea. Yes, we are in the surreal, unpredictable and often achingly funny universe of Rhys Hughes. Hang logic on the hook by the door, suspend disbelief over the clothes rail to dry and only enter if you have a sense of humour and a love of the absurd. The Postmodern Mariner is a slight book, decorated with stunning cover art by Steve Upham and split into three distinct but linked sections, which are all part of Hughes’ 1,000 linked stories masterplan, a monster story cycle spread over anthologies and magazines everywhere.

Allan, A Thread of Truth (2008)

Nina Allan, A Thread Of Truth. Eibonvale Press, 2008. Pp. 224. ISBN 9780955526800. £9.95/$15.00.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Delicate and fragile as a spider’s web, that’s what the stories in this collection are, carefully woven together with such subtlety that a moment’s distraction will break the spell and quickly obscure the meaning. The clues are there, you just have to hold your breath, tread carefully and read, instead of simply reading. A Thread of Truth is published by the intriguing Eibonvale Press and comes complete with yet another, striking David Rix cover. Eibonvale are making a name for themselves with the sheer physical gorgeousness of their books and this in no exception: the artwork really does reflect the stories, its splintered images redolent with enigma and flavoured with menace. (Disclaimer: this reviewer has a novel accepted by the Press.)

The collection starts with ‘Amethyst’, in which a young girl glimpses a layer of truth behind the facade of her best friend’s family. Or does she? Perhaps they are who they say they are. The story contains a paragraph that, for me, sums up the whole book; “I had never learned to read music. The notes she had spaced on the five ruled lines were just dots to me. I ignored them and read the words.”

‘Amethyst’ is followed by ‘Ryman’s Suitcase’ with an opening that is pure of W Somerset Maugham. Here we have the locum who has taken over a missing GP’s patients, the woman who wants him, an unsettling children’s party clown and the mystery of the missing doctor himself. An intriguing mix and, again, the clues are there...

Closing ‘Ryman’s Suitcase’ we are taken, abruptly, to a planet called Magna and presented with the mystery of the dragons that are part of its fauna. ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’ is set in a research colony on that world. There is no going back to earth, these people are committed and it is the sense of being cut off from home carefully melded with the excitement of discovery that gives the story its tension. “We’re seeing things for the first time.” Says one of the protagonists, “Nobody’s done that for centuries, not since Columbus or Vasco De Gama.”

From Magna we travel back to Earth and a road called ‘Queen South’ where a young man, engaged to be married to the talented Lisa becomes fascinated by a blonde girl who is the very opposite of his fiancée, who is as spontaneous and affecting as she is infuriating. Again, a story with delightful subtlety and gentleness.

The feisty and demanding Justina leads us from ‘Queen South’ to a hotel called ‘The Vicar with the Seven Rigs’ on an adolescent expedition to break into the place, as much a test of her admirers’ devotion as curiosity about the old building. The characters are vivid and each one individual and carefully drawn. The story starts simply enough but ends as reality shatters into disorientation and uncertainly. What are we seeing? What has happened? Effective, discomforting.

‘Heroes’ is filled with travellers, including Wal Carter the lorry driver, a pigeon called Hero and her enigmatic, eccentric owner. Everyone the young protagonist meets has a past. Are they interlinked, or just part of the structure of their lives? And then there is the legend of Hero and Leander, and the untimely death of a young violinist in a plane crash. Sadly not quite as engaging for me personally as the other stories in the collection, ‘Heroes’ is, nonetheless an intriguing brew.

Still travelling we reach the ‘Terminus’ for a journey on the Moscow underground. A dark, claustrophobic tale this is the nearest Nina Allen get to horror in his collection, but even then it is dreamlike and more unnerving then horrific. From the very outset of the trip we know that something is wrong, that something is going to happen...

And so to the final ‘Thread of Truth’, the title story, the longest story and my personal favourite. This is a wonderful, subtle, fragile narrative about an arachnophobe who tries to cure himself by enrolling on a spider hunt in my own home county of Suffolk. The narrator is a fully realised, affable character who is quickly drawn to one of the female members of the spider hunting group. Their relationship is painted with a light touch, the object of his affection, pleasant but enigmatic and at the story's heart, as with ‘Heroes, there is a very disturbing legend. This is the most compelling tale in the collection, and the most direct though still painted with light, pastel strokes. A wonderful climax to the collection.

A Thread of Truth is not without faults of course, the most irritating being the fact that it is not always easy to know the age and sex of its protagonists until well into a story. Perhaps this is part of the ambiguity, but it did cause me to stumble a little in a couple of cases when I realised that the image I had mind-painted of a character turned out to be way off the mark. The proof reading could also have even tighter; again, while not shatteringly bad this does interrupt the smooth reading of the text.

None of these, however, detract from the sheer, delicacy of this anthology. It reminded me of a Thelonius Monk jazz piece, the theme fragile, everything held together by the finest of threads. There is originality here, unpredictability. There is no second guessing, no obvious ending looming on the horizon. These stories have to be taken away, thought over, pondered. A collection, then, for those who don’t want the obvious, who dislike being told all the time, who like to be left to work it out for themselves. Stories that are offered, then released to the reader.

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Whates, The Gift of Joy (2009)

Ian Whates, The Gift of Joy. NewCon Press, 2009. Pp. 254. ISBN 9781907069017. £9.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Joy is the best word to describe The Gift of Joy, a collection of mostly (but not only) science fiction stories from Ian Whates, because that is what comes across from start to finish, a sense of sheer enjoyment, a feeling that writing is nothing but pleasure. Here is someone, you think, who loves writing. Even its striking Vincent Chong cover crackles with energy, there is light and dazzle, technology and menace, a perfect representation of what is inside.

Take the opener, and title story, for example. Here we have the ultimate gigolo, the consummate tribute act, someone who can literally turn themselves into their client’s fantasy. Then there is the breathless, not-a-word-wasted, time-running-out thriller ‘The Final Hour’ in which there are only 60 minutes to save the universe. War, the real meaning of heroism and its consequences are examined in ‘The Battle for Paradise’, which is a vivid, visceral epic in which men fight and die but for a cause, which like all causes, is seldom really one that is worth such a monstrous loss of life. ‘Flesh and Metal’ is yet another fast and furious thriller, man on a mission verses killing machine, cross and double-cross, threat on every side, who do you trust? Another loner manoeuvres his way through deceit and danger in ‘One Night in London’, an enjoyable and imaginative package-to-be-delivered yarn.

On a more thoughtful note there is ‘Fear of Fog’ which is a tricky, elusive tale about a couple caught out in a fog that reeks of malevolence and oncoming menace. The woman seems to know what is going to happen, and there are other things that seem wrong, atmospheric this one. Another slower and darker piece is ‘Ghosts in the Machine’, the haunters of the foul and shadowed underground of the city; lost souls or something more vital?

For light relief there is ‘Glitch in the System’, set in a village battered by a stream of lorries taking a short cut through the lanes, and ‘Hint of Mystery’ set in the competitive world of Asian food.

Tel’s Favourite is ‘The Sum of the Past’, once again an examination of identity, of why we are what we are, told by a space hero who is, or perhaps isn’t such a hero after all. A clever story laced with subtlety beneath its portrayal of the brash and bold.

There is more, a lot more, each one filled with that same energy and vitality that sets this collection apart from so many I have read. It is not completely devoid of cynicism, yet even the darker stories hold some element of the upbeat. Is it the style of writing, the pace, it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is, but nothing in here left me beaten and bruised and in need of fresh air.

This joy is not shallow however. Okay there are out-and-out adventure stories, but there are difficult questions asked, examinations of the human condition carried out in the extreme laboratories of fantastical fiction. There is mood and shade among the bright colours. ‘Ghosts in the Machine’ for example is a powerful allegory of rich and poor, of the privileged, blind to the grinding, oil-covered machinery that maintains their bright and smooth running world. There is consideration of the true nature of heroism, of the indescribably waste of life wrought by war. Political folly and national ambitions are dissected in ‘The Laughter of Ghosts’.

The book is not without blemish of course. For me, the weakest link is ‘It’s About Time!’, a chronological romp inspired by the time travel tales of Isaac Asimov. I just don’t like this type of story and, sadly, this one did nothing to change my mind. Also a lot of the stories are set in the type of dark, deadly and noirish underbelly of the futuristic city which readers find themselves visiting more and more in the pages of the SF story. That said, however, Whates does zap those much-used places with a much-needed lick of fresh paint and so can be forgiven for leading us into such familiar dens and dives yet again. The short afterward to each story was, I think, unnecessary. For me the stories were very strong and able to stand up without explanation as to their origins and also these potted autobiographies brought me back to earth too quickly, I wanted to carry on believing that I had been to a real Universe of Wonder for just a little longer.

Ian Whates’ writing is smooth and immensely readable. There is no pretentiousness, words are well chosen and the narrative straight to the point, but at the same time able to connect the reader emotionally to the cast of these stories and that, along with an electric imagination is his strong point, is what keeps the pages turning and the bedside lamp glowing far beyond its normal switch-off time.

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Fry, Mindful of Phantoms (2009)

Gary Fry, Mindful of Phantoms. Gray Friar Press, 2009. Pp. 276. ISBN 9781906331078. $26.00 / £14.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Supernatural fiction tends to be gathered together into a general, rather messy pile made up of vampires, monsters, blood-stained fang and claw, crazed, demon-possessed killers etc. In some bookshops it is even dumped into the same out-of-the-way dark corner as science fiction and fantasy. Okay, there are overlaps, and long may they lap over, but for me the ghost story is a separate entity, a sub-genre replete with its own mores and tropes. The ghost story is rooted deeply in human emotion. Ghosts themselves often wander the earth because of unfinished business, unresolved love, justice to be done. Ghosts are seldom demon-possessed killers or in need of flesh, blood and souls to feed on. Ghosts are that part of us that cannot be fed or touched, our souls I suppose, the intensely emotional part of our makeup that has somehow survived and needs to fulfil one final purpose before rest can be found.

Gary Fry’s Mindful of Phantoms fits this definition perfectly. Here you will find the lingering and often dangerous remains of human emotion made manifest and explored classically through the medium (no pun intended but it is a neat one don’t you think?) of the ghost story. Fry himself is an author who fascinates me. I often feel that there is a lot more going on in his work than meets the eye, that there are layers to be peeled away before the real text can be laid bare. It is in the ghost story, therefore, that Fry’s explorations of the human condition find a good home.

So, to the book itself. Mindful of Phantoms, a clever title, another neat pun. The cover art, suitably dark and unsettling, is the work of the author himself. The edition I read, a handy sized and pleasant-to-handle hardback.

There are 18 stories in all, none of them overstays its welcome but all are long enough to fully develop character and theme. These characters are realistic, people you could meet on your way through life, builders, teachers, newlyweds, the old and the young. They live in this world, in houses like ours, in streets like ours. And, importantly, their motives and pressures, their emotional souls are like ours. What they want are the normal, the mundane and necessary things that make life work. Indeed, it is these everyday needs and desires that form the foundation on which the supernatural element is built, giving the stories three solid dimensions and delivering a hefty emotional jolt to the reader. None of the of the protagonists are tiresome ghost hunters or mindless gun-carriers and, importantly, none of them are the standard angry, alienated small press loner-loser. Something I found refreshing about the collection because more and more I want to grab Mr Small Press Hero, tell him to pull himself together, get a job and make up with his long-suffering girlfriend.

The opener, ‘School of Fought’ sets the tone nicely. Acted out in a private boarding school it has all the elements of the classic ghost story, an old building, a dark secret seldom spoken about but buried in the shallowest of graves and justice still to be done. It also reveals an M R Jamesian ambiguity that permeates most of these tales and one that, for the most part, works well because the glimpsed, the imagined monster is always more frightening than the full-on horror.

‘Black Dogs’ takes us into more subtle ground where the ghosts may be real, or they may be imagined. Whichever they are, they are certainly no less unsettling. Yes, it is a tale of shadows and lurking menace but it is also an examination of family politics, of father-and-son love and this is what gives it its strength. ‘The Tree House’, ostensibly a tale of possession, also considers family tension as seen through the eyes of a young boy who is given the gift of a tree house by a shadowy benefactor. In ‘On the Wings’ a young lad struggles for acceptance in that most terrifying of all jungles, the school playground. He chooses his friends badly, and his own talents and strengths suffer as a result, he finds cruelty coiled in himself, and all the while something dark and monstrous is circling about him. A real monster, or a manifestation of his own guilt and frustration? Or both? Again, questions and no comfortable answers, one of the great strengths of this book.

Among the longer stories is ‘Unfriendly Fire’ which features an aging and recently widowed academic who is seeking some peace by the sea. He is an affable character, and, in the end, an unlikely detective, because a chance encounter leads him into yet another of Fry’s simple-yet-complex mysteries. It represents the slightly lighter side of the collection, a side that includes ‘The Price to Pay’, the tale of an unpleasant Estate Agent who finds more to a property than its prime location and suitability for the DIY enthusiast. A gang of builders take centre stage for another entertaining slice of darkness in ‘Figure of Fun’. Having spent the first twenty years of my own working life on building sites I found this bunch realistic and engaging, and the ghost/spirit/evil force original and truly menacing.

I have a pair of favourites; I know normally I go for one but I can’t decide between the two. The first is ‘Man’s Best Friend’ in which a woman who has fled from an abusive relationship discovers that escape is not as easy as she would have liked to believe. There is a tightness to this story and, again, that out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye M R James ambiguity, which heightens the sense of dread and arouses the got-to-finish-this curiosity of the reader.

‘Index of an Enigma’ is the other Tel’s Favourite. The tension between husband and wife, suspicion, self-pity and a vivid I've-been-there descriptions of the dreaded professional conference gives this tale its edge. I was quickly connected to the protagonist, and, even though I didn’t like him, was along for the ride and not willing to get off until I’d seen it through.

On the down-side, some of the prose was a little clumsy and clunky, but this was a small price to pay for the journey. When he is flying, Fry’s style is individual and interesting. He is able to engage the emotion, he takes you with him and there is enough unpredictability to keep you once he has you. Also, there is a tendency for the ghosts (real or imagined) to be glimpsed in a similar way, a face at a window or a figure lurking among the trees and so on. I know this is gives a phantom its menace, its shivery, half-seen fearfulness, but I would have liked a little variety in the manifestation department.

Having said that, it in no way detracts from the excellence of this book. Mindful of Phantoms does what a collection of ghost stories should do. It removes the soul, the glowing, indefinable part of ourselves we call our emotions, our needs, and gives it form. It is sadness and loss and danger. It is uncertainty.

It is good.

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Denyer, The Edge of the Country (2009)

Trevor Denyer, The Edge of the Country and Other Stories. Immediate Direction Publications, 2009. Pp. 112. £5.40/$10.15.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

The small press world owes a great deal to Trevor Denyer. Though starting off as a writer of some note back in the 1990s, he is better known these days as a magazine publisher, first with Roadworks in the latter years of the last century, then Legend and finally the much acclaimed Midnight Street. All are of the highest quality and placing a story in the pages of a Trevor Denyer magazine brings its fair share of kudos to any small press writer. Because of this, it has been easy to forget that initial chapter of Denyer’s career. As a result, his first, and long overdue, collection, The Edge of the Country, is a very welcome reminder of his talent as an author in his own right. The title of Allen Ashley’s introduction says it all: 'About Time Too'.

Rix, What the Giants are Saying (2009)

David Rix, What the Giants are Saying. Eibonvale Press, 2008. Pp. 200. ISBN 9780955526862. £9.95.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

When on a weekend break in Yorkshire a year or so ago I took a walk through a valley filled with giants. They were impassive, impressive, inscrutable and very intimidating. They were, of course, those love-'em or hate-'em wind turbines. I am one of those who finds the things graceful. They are strange beasts, there is a near-life feel about them and, as David Rix shows us in his novella, What The Giants Are Saying, they are far from silent. Their song is, indeed, the voice of giants.

In the novella, Rix introduces us to Don, a landscape painter, disillusioned by the mediocrity of his work and in the process of splitting up with a girlfriend he blames for the dissolution of his artistic inspiration. He is depressed, angry and self-destructive. Dangerous enough, in fact, to crash his car out on a lonely moor watched over by countless, whispering wind turbines.

That’s where he meets an enigmatic woman named Feather. Otherworldly and seemingly impervious to the bitter cold, she first haunts his thoughts then draws him into a bizarre, destructive relationship. She too is an artist, but the landscapes Feather creates are far more physical and bloody than anything Don has so far dreamed of. And watching over it all, their whispering song a haunting soundtrack, are the giants, hallucinatory and thrumming with a strange and threatening life of their own.

Following the novella is a short story called 'Red Fire', a prequel where we first meet Feather, this time the relationship reversed, she the canvas, her lover Cal, the artist. The result is just as brutal and unsettling.

What the Giants Are Saying is an unnerving, edgy work. It asks the inevitable question, what is art? And then explores the issue in a supremely visceral and unflinching manner. Yes, it has become acceptable (though controversial still) to manipulate inanimate tissue, such as Damian Hurst’s sharks and sheep, or Dr. Gunther von Hagens’ corpse sculptures, but to carve and stitch your art onto living flesh, to mutilate the breathing, that is another matter, or is it? After all, who owns our flesh? We accept the tattoo, the piercing, gender change (whether medically necessary or simply a need), even genital mutilation—weren’t the Castratos of a bygone age mutilated in the name of musical art—so who is to say where it ends, what is acceptable and what is extreme, if not even criminal?

Don’s ex-girlfriend sees Don’s new and bloody art as somehow a personal affront, it repulses her, is, in her mind, a crime. The irony of her role in the story is that she is seen by Don as the destructive influence in his life, the reason for his breakdown because she is “normal”, conventional, actually cares about his health and physical well-being But what right has she to judge? Whose body is it anyway? What are our responsibilities, to ourselves and to those around us, those who depend on us?

Don is a typical independent press character, self-centred, self-obsessed and far from easy to get on with. It makes a change from the taciturn square-jawed hero of course and is much more realistic, but it can be annoying, there are times you want to shout at him, shake him, tell him to pull himself together, but he is an artist, and, traditionally, the artist stands outside the mainstream, so much art flows out of suffering. These outsiders exist, have given us so much music and writing. .

What the Giants Are Saying is a bold work, it eschews story-telling conventions, it is readable, but difficult. It gives no easy answers or comfortable conclusions. It asks mote questions than it answers. It is horror, and then it isn’t, not in the conventional sense anyway, it is that rare and wonderful thing, an unclassifiable work. Even the beautiful, striking and disturbing cover is ostensibly horror, but then, on closer examination probably not. In fact the cover art has the same edgy, bold and savage imagery examined in the story itself.

David Rix is, as I understand it, the man behind the remarkable and adventurous Eibonvale Press, publishers of the off-beat and different. With his own book he has certainly flown the Eibonvale flag and all power to him for stepping off the main road into wilder, more difficult country.
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Rector, Around a Dark Corner (2008)

Jeani Rector, Around a Dark Corner. Turner Maxwell Books, 2008. Pp. 310. ISBN 9780956188403. £8.99.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

This is Jeani Rector’s second collection and an example of an author who is steadily improving and developing her style. She has definitely corrected some of the weaknesses evident in her first collection and moved from the some of the traditional horror tropes it contained to the grey-shadowed, more subtle regions of that gothic land inhabited by the writers of dark fiction.

The anthology opens with a gruesome, amoral and enigmatic tale involving ‘The Dead Man’ and his killer. The reader literally stumbles on an unnamed narrator who is trying to dispose of the corpse of the title. There is a lot of medical detail and the protagonist’s plight is engaging and unnerving, right up until the final, shocking moment.

Following hard on its heels is the rather clumsily titled ‘A Medieval Tale of the Plague’. As a story it is compelling and tense, the atmosphere of fear, the filth and horror of medieval London in the midst of the Black Death is well described and vivid. Tension is cranked up relentlessly as the feisty young heroine first tries to hide from the contagion, then escape the capital. A cracking good yarn, but the effect is spoiled by some very anachronistic and jarring transatlantic language; “I figured...”, “Next street over...” and “Hi...” for example. Not terms used by medieval English - as far as I know. This is a shame because the research and the ambience of the story were authentic up to this point.

‘The Spirit of Death’ is a corker; a tale of seduction and dark and very bloody rituals. Nicely atmospheric this one, and filled with a sense of encroaching doom. In ‘Horrorscope’ we have a disturbed son who is determined to make sure his horoscope comes true at any cost. Again, tightly plotted, well-written and nasty. ‘In any Language’ takes us to Mexico at the time of the American civil war as a deserter comes face to face with a very different violence to the one he has fled south to escaper. The actual horror is traditional, but given a fresh lick of paint by its setting and a lively, energetic telling.

Another disturbed gentleman with an unhealthy interest in ‘Maggots’into a horror of rotting flesh and obsession. There is enough detail and sensory description to make this a story to be avoided at meal time.

‘Flight 529’ is an oddity, a card Rector first revealed in her last collection Open Grave and one I like - the retelling of a true story. In Open Grave it was a personalised version of the genesis of the Ebola epidemic, this time it is the first-hand experience a man involved in a plane crash. The description of the awful realisation that something was very wrong, the terror of the descent, the preparation for imminent impact and the desperate fight for survival that follows all draw the reader in and puts you, white-knuckled, into that seat. The final act of great human courage is both inspiring and as good as any fictional account.

This is followed by my favourite, ‘Lady Cop’. This piece is Terry’s Favourite (I always have one) and a longer, first-person narrative that takes us into the world of a woman police officer. What makes this story stand out is a sense of authenticity and a strong emotional engagement with the protagonist. The cop is a rookie, anxious to impress but treated with disdain by her male partner and colleagues. The case is a nasty one, a murder. Step-by-step the story takes the reader through procedure, emotion, the tension surrounding the case and its brutal dénouement and aftermath. There was a sense of truth about ‘Lady Cop’.

Next is ‘The Golem’ about... well, it does what it says on the tin, and more so because it is a retelling of a Jewish legend. Set in the Prague Ghetto in the 16th century, the story centres around Rabbi Loew who is forced, reluctantly, to take desperate and supernatural action to protect his people from yet another wave of brutal persecution. The problem is that it is very hard to close the door on what comes through from the darker regions. This one is a good historical piece, with no anachronisms or jarring Americanisms. Leow’s dilemma is well presented and the story moves at a cracking pace.

The collection ends with a novella called ‘A Teenage Ghost Story’. Again, a clumsy title that gives too much away because essentially it is about a teenager and... well... a ghost. That said however, the story itself is another compelling, engaging tale that keeps those pages turning. The teenager at the centre of the tale is, thankfully, not the kind of whining, Oh-My-God princess Hollywood throws at us with its endless High School and then-there-were-none slasher movies, but a very personable young lady who quickly wins the reader’s affection. The supernatural element is perhaps not entirely original but the page-turning narrative does draw you in as it races neatly towards this dramatic conclusion.

The cover art is suitably gothic and provides the right feel for the collection. However, I’m afraid the publisher has messed up, certainly with my copy. The spine text is upside-down and off-centre. While not detracting from the stories themselves it doesn’t give the sharp, professional feel necessary to sell a book. And it is unfair to an author who has done her part in laying down some good prose and fine stories. Hopefully this has been rectified.

At her best, with ‘Lady Cop’ for example, Rector displays a keen eye for detail and an ability to engage the reader emotionally with her characters. The same, though to a lesser extent is true of the closing novella. There are some fine dark moments and enough morbid detail and nasty surprises to keep most horror fans happy. There are some predictable endings, but even they can be forgiven because the prose is friendly, likeable, the book is an acquaintance, relating some terrible and dark things that they heard about or experienced.

So, an immensely enjoyable collection of well-plotted and readable stories. There is a mixture of original and traditional–in the horror sense–work, but even the familiar monsters are given a fresh feel and there is no trace of tiredness to them. The historical and real-life re-telling is an interesting string to Rector’s bow, and one I hope she develops further, providing the research and attention to detail–particularly the dialogue–is sound. This is different and works well. Another admirable quality of Rector is that she has taken criticism of her first book on the chin and acted on it to produce a much improved and enjoyable work.
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Collier, 2012 (2008)

Bryan Collier, 2012: A Conspiracy Tale. Matador, 2008. Pp. 243. ISBN 9781906510541. £8.99/$19.95.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Cambridge-based IDSys have won a contract to supply the government with its new RFID implant, the human version of the company’s successful transport tracking device. For CEO Mitch Webb (is the author a fan of a certain comedy duo I wonder?) and his team this is the contract of a lifetime. But things are not as they seem and very quickly the whole project develops a nasty smell. What are the RFID implants really for? Is the major atrocity that takes place just as the RFIDs are ready for utilisation, really the work of terrorists or part of a government-sponsored conspiracy to curtail the freedoms of British citizens?

And in the background, shadowed by a mysterious organisation that consists of the world’s top industrialist, politicians and even royalty, there is yet another, unearthly layer, bent on restoring what was once their role as rulers of the earth. It is down to Mitch and his team to unravel these apocalyptic conspiracies and somehow stop the countdown to disaster, while at the same time keep themselves alive as dark forces close in.

So, an exciting plot and, I have to say, an utterly compelling read. It kept me turning those pages, and prevented me from sleeping at night and from getting out of bed on a couple of the mornings when I should have been up and painting the bathroom. The book builds inexorably and efficiently towards its climax, the characters are well-drawn and convincing and the science seems credible, even more so as the author is an electronics engineer. The cover, designed by Mark Hows, is also suitably menacing.

However, I was not so impressed with the actual writing style. Okay, this is a thriller, it is about ideas, plot and the issues raised (more about which later), so it can sustain a workmanlike style. 2012, however, was stylistically below par in places and really could have done with a ruthless edit. Not in terms of cutting, I hasten to add, because the plot is well honed and sharp and there is little overwriting. Repeated words are an example. These jar and make reading uncomfortable and should have been cleaned out at the editing stage.

The most irritating problem is a structural one. When a character is introduced the author tends to write a potted biography straight away. This is a particular problem at the beginning of the novel, because, halfway through the first paragraph, the narrative suddenly loses pace just at the time when it should grab you, throw you inside the story and tell you to read on. These are the people involved, it should shout, something big is happening, don’t worry about their backgrounds yet, there isn’t time right now, you’ve got to read this, come on, come on, hurry up. Biographies can be provided at a point when you need to catch your breath. Instead, we have this piece of loose, literary carpet over which we trip just as we start to run.

Anyway, back to the positive. The book raises some very important issues about personal freedom, globalisation and just who is in charge. Yes, there are some David Icke-ian elements to the story, which were handled quite cleverly by the way, and with a certain amount of wit, but looking beyond that, we, like the society in the novel, are faced with an increase in surveillance and with the possibility of ID cards. We, like Collier’s fictional citizens, stand on the brink of the whole 666 nightmare which dictates that without that much misunderstood number tattooed on forehead or arm, no one can trade, work or eat. In the story we have a stark choice. You want a bank account, to shop, a job? Then accept your RFID implant or you’ll get none of the above.

The frightening reality raised by this tale is the ease with which freedom can be removed and the ruthlessness with which lives can be sacrificed in the name of expedience and the so-called “good of the many”. It also gives a view into the world of conspiracies and shows us that although we may not believe in the often weird and wacky universe of the conspiracy theorist, there is often no smoke without fire. It reminds us that although disasters and atrocities my not, in real-life, be government-sponsored, political advantage can certainly be extracted from them.

2012: A Conspiracy Tale is a good read. It is compelling, good fun and thought provoking. It is also a first novel and hopefully Collier will iron out those prose ripples in the next one and give us another sharp, intelligent and thought-provoking work.
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Nemonymous 8 (2008)

D.F. Lewis (ed.), Cone Zero (Nemonymous #8). Megazanthus Press, 2008. Pp. 269. ISSN 1474-2020. £10.00.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

From its tentative beginnings at the turn of the century to its latest manifestation as the Cone Zero anthology, Nemonymous has always been an intriguing, beguiling, infuriating and constantly evolving project. There were the comparatively normal (though sideways on) early editions, then the blank-covered and untitled issue, the school exercise book facsimile and so on. I suppose such creative eccentricity is inevitable seeing as Nemonymous is the carefully nurtured literary child of the inimitable D F Lewis who is himself a purveyor of some of the most intriguing, beguiling, infuriating stories I have ever read. Evolved from journal format to book, the Nemonymous conceit is basically the same. You don’t know who wrote the story you are reading. In the early days, there was no hint, no name, just stories. This time the authors names are listed on the back cover, but you are not told which author wrote which story.

Dean Harkness’s cover reminds me of those early-seventies Panther science fiction paperbacks which usually featured a close-up, odd-angled photo of some unidentifiable (but possibly mundane) object. One of Asimov’s Foundation novels had, if I remember rightly, a clock spring on the cover.

So, what about the stories? After all, you don’t buy a book for its cover and you certainly don’t buy Nemonymous because it is full of your favourite authors (although it might be of course). Well, this is certainly the most accessible issue of the series I have read so far, in which, from physical artefact to concept to malevolent, brooding enigma, Cone Zero is explored in all its forms and guises.

There are four stories actually titled 'Cone Zero'. The first taking us into a messy flat where a horrible and alien mould grows in the toilet and the inhabitants, both friend and stranger, lounge around in joint-stupefied lethargy. There is something Pinteresque about this place, full of an unspoken menace that doesn’t quite reveal itself. The second 'Cone Zero' is one of my favourites, a fantastic tale of a man who finds himself in an underground hospital that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Carry On film. Society it seems, has turned Darwinian, it is now illegal to treat illness. A marvellously imaginative yarn full of atmosphere and a strange authenticity.

'Cone Zero' number three teeters in that hinterland between dream and reality. A temple, a statue and a beautiful woman inhabit what is a mysterious and ultimately moving story. 'Cone Zero' four is another masterpiece. Set in some mythical world that seems like 19th Century Paris, it has mention of televisions and is back-dropped by an unnamed but savage war. It snows on Damian’s 30th birthday, and it is snowing blood. A search for a mysterious, visionary artist, terrible revelations and a tragic past all collide into one of the most satisfying endings I have ever read.

So what else have we got here? 'The Fathomless World' opens the show with the story of the errant and ultimately God-like Tall Man who is sentenced to wander the corridors of a mysterious building, until, one day, he finds a way out... 'Cone Zero, Sphere Zero' is set in a self-contained world where it is a crime to even conjecture that there might be anything at all outside the conical walls of the world. A persistent blasphemer finds an ally in the unlikely place. We travel down 'An Oddly Quiet Street' which has resonance and references to Rosemary’s Baby as a wife talks her husband into buying a run down property in, well, an oddly quiet street. Identity and the dream that is the Hollywood Dream are up for grabs in 'More Than You Know' when a stunt man tries to find out just who the star he doubles for actually is. This is a corker; I loved it.

Time for us to be 'Going Back For What We Left Behind', or perhaps not, because that which we’ve lost is sometimes best left that way. My advice, stay on the train if it stops at the mysterious 'Conezero' (pronounced the Italian way) station. Classic horror, this one, given a fresh lick of paint and a healthy dose of emotion. For lovers of Toy Story we have the marvellous 'Cone Zero Ultimatum' in which a herd/swarm/pack of abused household appliances escape and set off on a perilous quest for Eden. Great fun, and utterly compelling.

An ancient, flickering scrap of monochrome film reveals the haunting and poignant mystery of Angel Zero. A cleverly written and technically complex piece this is another of my favourites. A sweating, panic-drenched race for a train is not 'How To Kill An Hour', especially when it ends so bloodily. Another story that draws you in, increases the heart rate and has you shouting at the protagonist to hurry up, and all shadowed by the malevolent and never explained Cone Zero. Looking for a place to rent? Be careful when you see that 'To Let' sign, especially if the owners have left any of their own ornaments on the mantelpiece. A truly dark and sinister work to finish the collection.

Yes, I’ve missed one story out. I always do, because I like to save my absolute favourite till last. This time it is 'The Point of Oswald Masters'. Witty, very funny but making a sharp (sorry), excellently-observed point (sorry again) about art, both the physical and the imagined. Where does art begin and end? Who does it belong to? Are the emperor’s new clothes really a work of art because, untouched by human hands or craft, they are, of course, perfect?

As I said earlier, this is a particularly accessible member of the Nemonymous brood, however, that accessibility is actually something of a veneer. In each work we see the what, but not the why or the how. Who are the creators of Sphere Zero? Which world is Damien living in, this one? An alternative universe? Who is the mysterious patient in that underground hospital, is he a spy, resistance fighter? And is it really the late 1960s? Virtually every story is like a very satisfying and complete iceberg tip that reveals the result, but never gives away that which lies beneath. We should have known, because Mr Lewis has that Oswald Masters touch, just when you think he’s finally mellowed you realise that it’s smoke and mirrors, Uncle Des has held out a sweet (one of those cream-filled chocolate cones with a hazelnut on top) then deftly snatched it away just as your fingertips close about the wrapper.

Well done Des for choosing such a fantastic array of tales to create one of those rarities, a flawless anthology, and a huge congratulations to the authors for the quality, wit and inventiveness of their work. And for telling some Great Stories.
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