Speculative Fiction Junkie

Things have been a little slower around Speculative Fiction Junkie this year. Nonetheless, I read a number of excellent books this year. Here are my Top 5 Reads of 2011:

#1 - Beyond the Door (review here)
Jeffrey Thomas

Beyond the Door by Jeffrey Thomas was my favorite book this year. While on the surface it may seem to be little more than a collection of excellent weird vignettes, this book is in fact both an unapologetic celebration of the weird as well as a testament to its potential as a humanizing force in our lives. For some reason, this book remains inexcusably underrated. I'm looking forward to exploring more of the work of Mr. Thomas next year.
 




#2 - The Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures (review here)
William Hope Hodgson

If 2010 was marked by my discovery of Jean Ray, then 2011 will likely be remembered as the year I discovered the work of William Hope Hodgson.

This second volume of his collected fiction contains the novel The Boats of the Glen Carrig as well as a number of other stories that demonstrate the staggering breadth of his abilities. The Boats of the Glen Carrig itself is absolutely terrifying (even if it does falter a bit in the second half) and is in my opinion leaps and bounds better than the much more popular The House on the Borderland.



#3 - The Quantum Thief (review here)
Hannu Rajaniemi


It's been years since a work of science fiction made it onto one of my Top 5 Reads lists. From the moment I finished reading Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief, however, I knew it would end up on this year's list.

It has been a long, long time since I enjoyed a work of science fiction as much as I enjoyed this one. The only problem now is that the sequel is not out yet. If you're a hard sci-fi fan and haven't yet read this one, what are you waiting for?



#4 - Last Argument of Kings (no review)
Joe Abercrombie


Yep, I know. Everyone read this one years ago. For some reason, it took me forever to get around to reading this final volume in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, which is one of the best set of fantasy books to have been written recently. Since I last read Abercrombie, I'd sampled and recoiled at many of the latest fantasy books touted as this year's Big Thing. Returning to Abercrombie made me feel like I was getting back to the real thing. These books are gritty, violent, and full of political intrigue. I devoured this one and can't wait to read the books that he's published since.


#5 - Nightingale Songs (review here)
Simon Strantzas


You're not surprised that Nightingale Songs made it onto this list, are you? If it isn't obvious by now, I'm a big fan of the work of Simon Strantzas. That is not to say that he gets a pass here at Speculative Fiction Junkie, just that he continues to produce excellent work and I continue to really enjoy it. While this one hasn't been released into the wild yet, it's due to arrive any day now. If you've enjoyed previous works by Mr. Strantzas, do yourself a favor and go ahead and order this one.




Book-Related Disappointments of 2011

There were no earth shattering book-related disappointments this year. The largest annoyance of the year was interacting with the absentee booksellers over at Mythos Books. I ordered a book by Matt Cardin from them almost two months ago. Not only did it never arrive. They never bothered to respond to any of my multiple email inquiries. Oh, they did take my money though. That was no problem for them. My advice to any potential customers: stay away!

Well, that's it. I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Happy New Year!

Even now, almost fifty years after his death, the short stories of Belgian author Jean Ray are notoriously difficult to find in English. There are in fact only three collections of his work available in English and all of them can be difficult and expensive to acquire. Any small increase in the availability of his work is therefore a cause for celebration.

As if the inclusion of two Ray stories in the VanderMeers' mammoth The Weird (table of contents available here) wasn't enough, they have now posted two additional stories on the book's companion site, Weird Fiction Review.

That means there are now four Ray stories that should now be permanently in the easy to find category:

• "The Mainz Psalter" (in The Weird)
• "The Shadowy Street" (in The Weird)
• "The Formidable Secret of the Pole" (available here)
• "The Horrifying Presence" (available here)

If you haven't ever read Jean Ray's work before, you are in for a treat. You can read my review of his latest collection, The Horrifying Presence and Other Tales, here. It made #2 on my Top Reads of 2010 list.

Look for The Weird to be reviewed here at some point in one fashion or another.

Simon Strantzas

If you've ever read and enjoyed a work of weird fiction after reading a review of it here at Speculative Fiction Junkie then you owe a small measure of gratitude to Simon Strantzas, whose second collection, Cold to the Touch (review here), was my introduction to weird fiction. I found it so compelling that I have been reading and reviewing works of weird fiction ever since. There are, quite simply, few things I look forward to more than a new collection from Mr. Strantzas. Nightingale Songs is his first new collection in over two years.

Nightingale Songs collects 12 short stories, 4 of which have never been published before. While his previous two collections were similar in a lot of ways, the stories in his debut, Beneath the Surface (review here), tended to be a bit more stark and in-one's-face than those found in Cold to the Touch. The latter was comprised of tales that were generally more subtle and atmospheric.  Nightingale Songs bares a closer resemblance to Cold to the Touch than it does to Beneath the Surface in that most of the tales it collects rely on subtlety rather than starkness to work their destructive magic on the reader.

Already accomplished in this regard, Nightingale Songs shows that Mr. Strantzas is becoming even more adept at navigating the logic of dreams and nightmares. Just as dreams are sometimes obvious metaphors for one's life and other times seem practically nonsensical, Mr. Strantzas' work is truly dreamlike in that it is often difficult to discern the significance of what one encounters in his stories, even as it is obvious that one is staring at and contending with symbols, metaphors, and other reflections.

"Tend Your Own Garden" is a perfect example of a story that is more nakedly metaphorical than some of the others. It concerns a man who returns to the home that he had shared with his wife until they split up and he was replaced by his wife's former lover. Ostensibly, he has returned for a box of old blueprints that he thinks he has left in the house. While there, he recalls how while he was renovating their marital home--shoring up its foundations--she was laying the seeds of infidelity by reconnecting with an old lover via their computer. Once in the house, the man quickly discovers that he is disoriented and doesn't remember where anything is. The metaphor is obvious but that does not diminish this story's power in the least.

On the opposite end of the spectrum in the sense that its symbolism is much less easy to discern, is the first tale, entitled "Out of Touch." Here, one gets an early glimpse of one of this collection's most pervasive themes: imprisonment. "Out of Touch" is about two boys who are trapped in numerous ways. One is imprisoned in his room by illness, the other imprisoned by the brokenness of his family in the wake of his father's departure. Both are further imprisoned by the monotony and monochromatism of suburbia; so much so, that an oddly nonconforming house that is across the street from one of the boys--the mirror of the boy's house--becomes irresistible, the only means of escape.

Somewhere between these two lies the excellent "Her Father's Daughter," which first appeared in Strange Tales: Volume III from Tartarus Press (review here) and which also concerns imprisonment of a sort. In it, a young woman's car breaks down in the middle of a stretch of unfamiliar farmland on a winter night while she is taking a detour on her way home from school. Her father's past admonitions and likely reactions to her present poor planning are ever present as she tries to figure out what to do. In the only nearby house, however, she encounters overbearing paternal presence run amok in a way that is quintessential Strantzas.

Another standout story that I have been unable to stop thinking about since I read it is "The Nightingale." It is the only story in this collection that really seems to be of a piece with the kind of work collected in Beneath the Surface. It is far less dreamlike than the other stories in this collection and is really more of a traditional horror story than the others. It is about the beautiful songbird Elaina Munroe. Two men hear her singing at the Nightingale club one night and find her irresistible; so much so, that one of them asks her to accompany him overseas. The man left behind, however, is unable to forget about her and may yet be destroyed by her irresistible songs.

Another story dealing with imprisonment is "Pale Light in the Jungle," a story that does a wonderful job not only of illustrating our culture's addiction to television but also of showing how frightening the world can be for us addicts when we finally try to cut the cord. This is one of the most atmospheric tales in the collection and also one of my favorites.

The remaining stories in this collection are all enjoyable, but those discussed above are easily my favorites.

With Beneath the Surface, Mr. Strantzas proved himself to be a compelling new writer of weird fiction. Cold to the Touch showed that he was not the sort to rest on his laurels but instead was continuing to evolve. With the release of Nightingale Songs, Mr. Strantzas has truly arrived. He has perfected a voice and style of weird fiction that is all his own and has cemented his reputation as a modern master in a field already crowded with talent. Whether you read these stories in the traditional manner or are lucky and cursed enough to hear them sung to you late one night by Ms. Elaina Munroe, Nightingale Songs will stay with you.

Rating: 10/10

The True First

Nightingale Songs will be released in February of 2012 by Dark Regions Press. It will be available in two editions: a signed, lettered edition limited to 26 copies and a signed, limited edition of 100 copies.

[This review was based on an electronic review copy]

Lucy M. Boston

Reviving the works of authors who might otherwise slide into obscurity is one of the nobler endeavors undertaken by many of the small presses operating today. The smaller scale of their operations allows them to publish works that larger publishers wouldn't even consider publishing.

With its latest offering, newcomer The Swan River Press, run by author Brian J. Showers, attempts to rescue from obscurity the supernatural tales of Lucy M. Boston, best known for her award-winning children's novels.  The book, entitled Curfew and Other Stories, collects three previously published short stories, three previously unpublished short stories, as well as a previously published play.

In the end, I found the collection to be a mixed bag. While none of the stories are bad, per se, most of them simply fail to make much of an impression. The first story, "Curfew," for example, concerns three young brothers who are spending a school holiday with an aunt and uncle in a newly purchased rural English farmhouse. A number of ominous objects are discovered, including an old coffin and an old bell that was once used to signal curfews and about which the locals still tell stories of evil. The story thread that knits these elements together, however, is so utterly lacking in atmosphere that when scary things start happening to individual characters, the story falls flat because they seem to come out of nowhere and be too tenuously connected.

In a similar vein, some of these stories have simply not aged well. In "Many Coloured Glass," for example, any potential for eeriness is forced to contend with dialog like the following:

"What are you looking at?" said Phillip. "Attend me!"
"It's too public here. All your admirers are still out there."
"Good luck to them."
"No, Phillip, not now. Not here. Oh dear, that was a lovely waltz."
"Why Oh dear in that tone? Why not 'You dear!', or 'my dear', my dear?"
"I don't know what I'm saying or doing," she answered.

I understand and respect the fact that language has changed over time. I think that, where possible, it's important to look beyond language that may sound awkward to us today but that was perfectly ordinary in its own day, but it is difficult to see how any sense of eeriness can survive dialog like this.

Despite its shortcomings, there is one story in this collection that is astoundingly good. It is the previously unpublished story entitled "Blind Man's Buff" (and no, I did not misspell that title). In it, a Captain Fernley recounts the harrowing calamity that would eventually lead him to his sorry present state. Once a promising young man, we learn that his rapid ascent would eventually be brought to a halt by a terrible experience that took place while he was in Venezuela. What happened is truly horrifying and the resulting story of revenge reminded me of Jean Ray's excellent tale "Cousin Passeroux" with its haunting refrain of "Like me...Cut in two... Eaten... Rotten." Any fan of weird fiction will be impressed by "Blind Man's Buff."

Ultimately, most of the stories collected in Curfew and Other Eerie Tales don't leave much of an impression. With one notable exception, they have not aged well and feel like kids' stuff when measured against the efforts of many of our modern scriveners of nightmares, including those penned by Brian J. Showers himself. I have high hopes for The Swan River Press, but its reputation will almost surely be built on works other than this collection.

Rating: 5/10

The True First

Curfew and Other Eerie Tales was first published in August of 2011 by the Swan River Press and was limited to 350 copies.

[This review was based on a review copy]

Brian J. Showers

Brian J. Showers has quietly been one of the stars of short fiction horror writing since the publication of his first collection of stories, The Bleeding Horse and Other Stories (review here). That collection made it onto my Top 5 Reads of 2010 list and I've been impatiently waiting for him to publish a follow up collection for some time. For those who have found themselves in a similar position, the wait is finally over; that is if you can get your hands on one of the merely 60 copies of Old Albert - An Epilogue that are being offered for sale.