Speculative Fiction Junkie

Rosalie Parker (Editor)

Over the past few months I've been reading more and more strange fiction, to the exclusion of most of the other genres commonly reviewed here at Speculative Fiction Junkie. As someone whose reading material also increasingly consists of the output of the many excellent small presses operating today, it was probably only a matter of time until I picked up one of the volumes of the Strange Tales series edited by Rosalie Parker and published by Tartarus Press. The volume I happened to come across was the most recent one, Strange Tales: Volume III.

Strange Tales: Volume III collects seventeen previously unpublished stories from authors both familiar and with whom I was not, until now, acquainted. The stories in this collection are not strange in any consistent manner, as one might expect from a collection by a single author, but instead bear the unique notion of weirdness imparted by the different authors who gave birth to them. Ms. Parker has done an excellent job of ensuring that a wide variety of styles and ideas are represented in this collection.

Nonetheless, while all of the stories in this collection are well written and are worth reading in their own way, as a matter of personal preference, I found some to be far superior to others.

First and foremost, "Her Father's Daughter" by Simon Strantzas is an excellent story. I named Mr. Strantzas' most recent collection, Cold to the Touch, my #1 Read of 2009, and so my high opinion of this story should perhaps not be unexpected, but I was a little surprised that it stood out so much even among such worthy companions. "Her Father's Daughter" contains two parallel stories about, you guessed it, the relationship between daughters and fathers. It is consistent with Strantzas' prior work in its atmospheric setting as well as in the sense of menace and mystery that permeates it.

Another excellent story is "Countess Otho" by Reggie Oliver. I've only read one collection of Mr. Oliver's work (Masques of Satan from Ash-Tree Press), but I found "Countess Otho" to be superior to anything contained therein. It tells the story of an actor who comes across a previously unknown play. It's effect on him, and the odyssey of the play itself, yield a story that is fairly traditional but extremely engrossing.

The biggest surprise was "Melting" by A.J. McIntosh, who I had never heard of prior to reading this collection. This tale, too, was fairly traditional in many ways but was also utterly captivating. In it, a doctor struggling to make ends meet in nineteenth century Edinburgh comes across a most peculiar patient. I'll be searching out other works by this author.

Some of the other enjoyable stories in Strange Tales: Volume III felt a bit unfinished. I'm thinking in particular about "Morpheus House" by Mark Valentine, "Sanctuary Run" by Daniel Mills, and "A Taste of Casu Marzu" by David Rix. Each of these, in their own way, introduces fascinating settings (a dream museum in "Morpheus House" and a remote religious community in "Sanctuary Run") or objects (the oddest cheese you've ever encountered in "A Taste of Casu Marzu"), but seem to stop shortly after introducing them, as though the thing itself were so odd that the story didn't require further development. Mystery and the unrevealed have an important place in the strange fiction tale but I could not help but feel that these stories were in some way incomplete.

On the whole, Strange Tales: Volume III is a wonderful collection, and perhaps just as importantly, the publication of the Strange Tales series is an important act in the effort to more firmly establish strange fiction in the mind of the modern reader. I'll be seeking out the other volumes in this series eventually and hope that volume III is but another volume of a long series.

Rating: 8/10

The True First

Strange Tales: Volume III was first published by Tartarus Press in December of 2009. I have no idea what the print run was as this information is uncharacteristically not available on the Tartarus Press website.

[This review was based on a review copy]