Review – 邪神決闘伝

邪神決闘伝 by Hideyuki Kikuchi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This self-described Cthulhu Western is a very traditional western hammered into a very traditional Cthulhu mythos mold to make something uniquely fun. The writer wears his tastes on his sleeve, writing a western based deeply in the Hollywood 1950s movie tradition: famous gunslingers, nefarious train companies running honest farmers off their land, and deadly natives. Add to that Deep Ones, Cthulhu magic, and seemingly deathless villains, and you get quite an adventure.

This does mean, of course, that many of the more nuanced views that have started to shape the American view of the west, particularly recognition of the terrible treatment of Native Americans and Black people, are absent. The Native Americans in this story are enemies, if ones on perhaps more equal terms with the protagonists than was common in the old western tradition, and the only black characters are nameless servants.

One rather interesting element is the addition of the Japanese character Shinobi, and the recurring equation of his Japanese-ness with the Native Americans by malevolent white characters–it adds a wrinkle to the treatment of race in this one that is worth thinking about.

Overall, there is little original ground tread here, but the author makes no bones about it: This is a product of his love of old western movies, and his interest in Lovecraft’s malevolent world building. If you go into it looking for that, you won’t be disappointed.

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Review – The Shapes of Midnight

The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

I went into this book blind. I did not know who the author was, or when the book was written, only that the cover looked interesting and it was in one of my favorite genres (the horror anthology). I am very glad that I did, because it was like some kind of mirror into my own reading history.

In the afterword, there is a quote from Stephen King that calls Brennan “one of the most effective writers in the horror genre” and I have to agree. Not because of the actual chills in the stories (honestly, I didn’t find that many) but because of the obvious influence he had on the genre, particularly Stephen King himself.

Reading the book, unaware of the history behind it, I felt myself thinking “This would have been perfect for Weird Tales.” more than once. I was, of course, 100% right. Brennan wrote hundreds of stories for that classic magazine.
I also found myself thinking, “This guy loved him some Stephen King.” It turns out I had it backwards!

These stories are nothing all that unique to the experienced reader of horror, and the “twists” in them are not twists at all, today. But this is because Brennan literally created many of them.

Of the stories in this collection, I found I liked The Pavillion best. A story of murder, guilt, and revenge(?) from beyond the grave, I found myself imagining it shot for shot in some early 80s horror anthology movie (Creepshow, of course).

Disappearance is another proto-King story. Indeed, I can see direct influences of several King stories here–the taciturn farmer with a secret, the missing family member, the grisly discovery. They all seem buried deep in our horror conscience now, thanks to stories like this.

As horror, honestly, there probably isn’t much here for the modern fan, but as a glimpse into the roots of the genre this is a very interesting (and still quite fun!) read.

I’d like to thank the publisher for the review copy!

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Review – Home from the Sea

Home From The Sea by William Meikle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Home from the Sea
by William Meikle

This is a collection of stories in a “Lovecraftian” vein, and all are connected to the sea/water in some way.

Overall, the collection is quite fun. It bounces between exciting novelty, and a somewhat telling repetition of ideas and even sentences. The whole seems to create an almost original branch of the mythos that is all Meikle’s, particularly the influence of music and rhythm on the mind and the “others.”

Some of my particular favorites among these stories are perhaps “Inquisitor,” pitting a shoggoth against a member of the Spanish Inquisition (bet you weren’t expecting that!); and the title story, in which whalers are faced with something horrific from the depths. They both take some basic familiar ideas and use them in novel ways to create something very interesting.

The book does have some minor little editing issues (one story had a bunch of commas replaced by the 3/4 symbol. What?) but is generally very well done and quite readable.

Definitely worth a read for horror and Lovecraft fans.

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Review – A Pretty Mouth

A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer

This collection is a reverse chronological exploration of the nefarious Calipash family, a bloodline cursed to depravity, transformation, and dissolution. It is also a masterful exercise in parody, as it lampoons Gothic horror, novels of manners, Lovecraft, and the history of Roman Britain.

The title story, a novella of twists and turns set in a private school in faux-English civil war Oxford, and it genderbends, challenges reader assumption, and sexes things up a lot.

I drive it hard to describe exactly what I looked about this book, but I looked it a lot. The writing is pitch-perfect, adopting the voice and style of each period cleverly, and it twists the tries of the styles in just the right way to keep things interesting.

A real pleasure!

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Lesath – Review

Lesath by A.M. Kherbash

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this book from Netgalley.

Lesath by A.M. Kherbash is taut, eerie, and disconcerting. It’s a modern creature feature of a book, which embraces tropes of Gothic literature, psychological horror and X-files style secrets to create a surreal journey through… What? A prison? An asylum? A mad scientist’s laboratory? All three? It never becomes entirely clear.

Indeed, not a whole lot does become entirely clear. The protagonist, Greg, an aimless man living from his car apparently decides to investigate a mysterious old manor in the woods for his podcast. He ends up trapped inside and the only explanation he’s given, that he is identical to an escaped inmate, might actually be true… Or it might be a delusion?
Things, of course, take a dark turn very quickly. People die. “Things” come out of ducts. More people die. And so it goes…

Many times reading this book, I was reminded of the greasy, oddly quiet scenery of horror games like Psycho-break or The most recent Resident Evil. Things are clearly bad. There is books on the walls, inexplicable mild and black ichor. You know something is coming. But lots of the scenes are just walking around checking doors and drawers.

This is my first criticism of the novel. There is a lot of compelling grotesquery and tension, but far too much of the book is taken up by sudden scenes of nothing much. The nature of the story, I think, is such that the reader is supposed to be confused by unexpected scene changes, as a way to emphasize the precarious nature of the protagonist’s mental state. But often times, the breaks don’t actually lead anywhere, and structurally seem to lose effect after the meeting of the book.

My other, and main criticism, is that a lot of the language used in the book simply didn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean. The author send to be struggling for an elevated register to evoke the Gothic tradition. The problems with this are twofold: first, sure this is a modern setting, the dialog is modern, and the clash between the elevated narrative and modern dialog is so great as to be almost comical. The second is that the register becomes so high that I dear many readers, and the author as well, don’t be really understand the words.

Phrases like “after observing the prevalent silence…” Or “he expressed a contented sigh” or the extremely frequent use of “discern” (13 times in 159 pages!) Feel like thesaurus abuse, and indeed incorrect usage at times.

Which is not to say that the writing is poor, it isn’t. It’s often well phrased and interesting. The dialog can be snappy and fun, too. But it can also be a bit messy and overwrought. I think a bit of time with a developmental editor could make the creepy story at the core of this novel shine.

I burned though it because I did want to see what happened, and the ending was fittingly unsettling and slightly confusing. I did enjoy the book, and appreciate the chance to read it given by the author, A.M. Kherbash.

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