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Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

Tales of Unease: Riding the Nightmare by Lisa Tuttle

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Riding the Nightmare (Valancourt Books, August 22, 2023). Cover by Vince Haig

Lisa Tuttle was born in USA, but relocated to the UK many years ago. She is a successful novelist, but especially a great short story writer, the author of numerous collections of dark fiction.

Her latest collection, forthcoming from the small but excellent imprint Valancourt Books, collects twelve previously published stories and is introduced by Neil Gaiman who, very aptly, emphasizes the Aickmanesque nature (meaning it somehow recalls the atmosphere of Robert Aickman) of some tales.

As a short fiction lover, a Lisa Tuttle fan, and a long time admirer of Aickman, my expectations for this book were high. And I was not disappointed.

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Still in Hell: Some Random and Rambling Thoughts on the Final Two Seasons of The Walking Dead

Still in Hell: Some Random and Rambling Thoughts on the Final Two Seasons of The Walking Dead

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The only thing more dangerous than the dead are the living

After all the praise, complaints and criticism finally subsided, I decided to watch the last two seasons of The Walking Dead, having taken a long break from the series for my own personal reasons. This is a follow-up to my 2-part article on 9 Seasons in Hell: The Walking Dead, from 2019, BC — Before Covid: 9 Seasons of Hell on Earth, Part One and 9 Seasons of Hell on Earth, Part Two. My thoughts are intended to be somewhat humorous, a bit critical, and slightly satirical. Whether I’ve succeeded or not, well, that’s up to you readers. I may be a day late and a dollar short on writing this article, but I figured there might still be a few fans of the show out there. I’ve written this article for those who have seen part of, if not all, of the TV series.

I know people who didn’t like that The Walking Dead was too character-driven. They wanted more zombie kills. It’s like they wanted Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his posse to walk all the way from the Shire to Mordor, fighting and destroying zombie after zombie every step of the way. I also know people who, like me, loved the fact that the show was driven more by character than by plot, although a little more care in some of the later plotting would have helped the last handful of seasons. But I didn’t need every episode to be about destroying or being eaten by zombies. I enjoyed the characters and their interactions, their backstories, the dramatic situations, and the “family-type” of various storylines.

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The Queen of Quiet Horror: NOW IT’S DARK by Lynda E. Rucker

The Queen of Quiet Horror: NOW IT’S DARK by Lynda E. Rucker

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Now It’s Dark by Lynda E Rucker (Swan River Press, 2023)

There was a time, years ago, when the term “quiet horror” (as opposed to splatter or graphic horror) was used to describe a type of dark fiction where monsters are not lurking behind the street corner, inside an empty house or in a deserted wood, but deep inside our soul.

It’s a pity that the expression “quiet horror” sounds a bit out of fashion, because it applies perfectly to the present collection (her third) Now It’s Dark, by the talented and insightful Lynda E. Rucker.

Rucker is a wonderful writer that I’ve occasionally met and enjoyed before, e.g. in the outstanding anthology Aickman’s Heirs, to which she contributed with the very atmospheric “The Dying Season” (included also in this book), describing the crisis of a couple staying at a resort off season, when everything is empty, slightly depressing and a bit weird.

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Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

Beauty and Nightmare on an Alien World: NIGHTBORN: COLDFIRE RISING BY C. S. FRIEDMAN

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Nightborn: Coldfire Rising by C. S. Friedman. (DAW Books, July, 18th, 2023, 304pages). Cover art by Jeszika Le Vye.

 

What if your feelings had shape and were visible?

What if you could see your nightmares manifest as they turned on you?

C. S. Friedman has published 14 novels, including the highly acclaimed Coldfire Trilogy and the groundbreaking science fiction novel This Alien Shore (New York Times Notable Book of the Year -1998). Her Nightborn: Coldfire Rising novel will be published this July, 2023 by DAW Books; this post reviews an advanced review copy (preorder from the publisher).

The stunning cover art by Jeszika Le Vye evokes and extends the signature covers of the Coldfire Trilogy crafted by Michael Whelan; the trilogy was released during 1991-1995 followed by a 2012 prequel novella, Dominion. Note that a revised version of Dominion, starring the Hunter himself, is in Nightborn.

And stay tuned — Black Gate has an interview in the works with C. S. Friedman (a perfect fit for our series on Beauty in Weird Fiction).

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The Thing Meets The Handmaid’s Tale: Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

The Thing Meets The Handmaid’s Tale: Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling

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Camp Zero by Michelle Min (Sterling Atria Books, April 4, 2023)

Camp Zero, Michelle Min Sterling’s debut, is a climate change novel that takes place in a near future where only the wealthy can enjoy the best the world has to offer as the temperature and sea levels rise rapidly, forcing them to take refuge in floating cities, virtual worlds, and the great white north.

These wealthy individuals are invading Canada by buying up tracts of land where they can escape the 110-degree (F) average temperatures of places like LA. Meyer, a classic tech-bro architect, has a vision of Camp Zero, a far north city of geodesic domes, and has brought together a team of locals to build it, although that may not be his real agenda. He has also brought in a team of “hostesses,” complete with a madam, to keep the executive staff happy and as occasional treats for the “diggers.” Grant, the camp’s latest hire, is an English teacher fresh out of prestigious Walden University, eager to cut ties with his wealthy family and settle into a quiet academic life surrounded by Nordic furniture and fields of snow.

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Quatro-Decadal Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Edward Ferman

Quatro-Decadal Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1989, edited by Edward Ferman

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The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
November 1989. Cover by Bryn Barnard

I thought that Asimov’s was going to rule the 1988 roost, but MoF&SF gives it a run for its money.

The issue jumps straight into the fiction!

Fiction — “Icicle Music” by Michael Bishop

A story told in time jumps, starting on Christmas Eve 1957. Danny Pitts, living with his mother in a small boxy house near the waste dump — is up early, and finds his wished-for shotgun that his single mom must have saved for over the year. His father is a bum, out of the picture for a couple of years. Then Danny hears a strange sound, like icicles breaking and the pawing of something on the roof. Then a man comes down the chimney,

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Noir, The Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Bang!, edited by Andrew Hook

Noir, The Boulevard of Broken Dreams: Bang!, edited by Andrew Hook

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Bang!: An Anthology of Modern Noir Fiction (Head Shot Press, March 1, 2023)

For reasons I don’t quite understand I love horror fiction but I hate horror movies.

By contrast, I love noir films but I don’t particularly like noir fiction. 

Yet, this anthology of noir stories has made me change my mind.

I’m not saying that I liked all the stories (that would be statistically impossible, even with horror anthologies) but certainly I was pleasantly surprised by my own response to several of the dark tales featured here.

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Might For Right: The Once and Future King, Part 1 by T.H. White

Might For Right: The Once and Future King, Part 1 by T.H. White

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“I have been thinking,” said Arthur, “about Might and Right. I don’t think things ought to be done because you are able to do them. I think they should be done because you ought to do them.”

King Arthur, p. 239 The Once and Future King

I first read English author T.H. White’s The Once and Future King when I was seventeen, fresh from seeing the movie Camelot (1967) for the first time (the musical Camelot, by Lerner and Lowe was based on parts of White’s novel). The tale of Arthur Pendragon, by turns both comic and tragic, told in a thoroughly anachronistic and post-modern way, reached me as few other books had. The story of Arthur’s education and effort to create a better world and his ultimate failure and downfall broke my heart. I absolutely loved the book and used it as the basis for my AP English exam essay instead of any of the books I’d read in class (I aced the test). More than any other Arthurian book or movie, White’s book forms my image of Arthur’s doomed noble reign.

I know I reread the book once during college or grad school, but that was over thirty years ago and my memories are dim. To say I approached The Once and Future King last month with some trepidation is an understatement. There’s been more than one greatly admired book I’ve revisited only to find out that whatever affection I held for it had flown. I did not want that to happen here. Nonetheless, spurred again by watching Camelot recently, I was determined to read the book. Having finished the first two parts of the novel, I am happy to find that not only do I still love the book, I’m impressed more than ever by its power and White’s artistry. Note: To convey the latter point, I’ll be quoting the book generously.

The Once and Future King is really four books; The Sword in the Stone (1938), The Witch in the Wood, later retitled The Queen of Air and Darkness (1939), The Ill-Made Knight (1940), and The Candle in the Wind (1958). The first three were all published as standalone novels, the fourth only as part of the unified four-book collection. A fifth part, The Book of Merlyn (1977), was written in 1941 but wasn’t published until long after White’s death in 1964. For today, I’m going to write on the first two parts.
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Step into the Shadowdark … you might like it

Step into the Shadowdark … you might like it

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For those who don’t know about the Open Game License “incident” from earlier this year, it’s too complicated to lay out in an introduction, so go look it up, then come back to this article.

Crazy, right? Despite Wizards of the Coast walking back a lot of what they were going to do, players and game designers alike are giving serious thought into whether or not they want to continue playing with this game system. While many are sticking with 5th Edition (5E) Dungeons & Dragons, others are looking into something completely different, including games that simulate the 1st Edition rules (known as Old School Renaissance or OSR). Which puts Kelsey Dionne at Arcane Library in the perfect time to release her long-awaited Shadowdark game, since it combines the fan-favorite elements of 5E and OSR games.

While it might seem like Shadowdark was rushed into production to capitalize on this sudden interest in alternative game systems, the truth is that it’s been several years in development. After the OGL crisis, Kelsey Dionne had to re-work some of the mechanics so that Shadowdark didn’t resemble Dungeons & Dragons too closely, but this just results in the game now looking more like her own unique thing (a similar situation is occurring with Gavin Norman’s also long-awaited Dolmenwood game). There are still the usual 6 character traits, armor class, and hit points. But complicated encumbrance rules are now replaced by a simple gear slot mechanic (you can carry as many items as your Strength score). The magic system looks like the traditional Vancian system used in every version of Dungeons & Dragons, but now it’s limited by a spell mishap table (similar to what you find in Dungeon Crawl Classics). Darkvision has been completely eliminated as an option for player characters, making those torches far more important and the threat of losing your light source far more intense (since ALL monsters can see in the dark). …

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Haunted Trucks, Ghostly Theaters, and Creepy Picnics: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

Haunted Trucks, Ghostly Theaters, and Creepy Picnics: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII (DAW, November 1984). Cover by Vicente Segrelles

The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII was the twelfth volume in the DAW Year’s Best Horror series and the fifth edited by the great Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). The book was copyrighted and printed in 1984. After nine covers by Michael Whelan, we have a new cover artist, the Spanish artist Vicente Segrelles (1940–). I think this is a frightening cover and less fantastic than those that Whelan often did. I had this by my bed one night and actually turned the book over because the lich-woman in the mirror was sort of creeping me out. That’s pretty good horror art!

But an even bigger artistic change is that this is the first DAW Year’s Best Horror without the famous yellow DAW spine and the famous DAW yellow tag on the cover; though the DAW “number” is still ongoing, this one being 603. This major aesthetic switch came about for all of DAW’s titles in late 1984. I assume that the DAW powers-that-be thought after about twelve years a change was needed. Maybe, but it does sadly mark the end of an era in paperback publishing. Nevertheless, the cover font of The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series XII is still similar to previous volumes, keeping it artistically in a line to some degree.

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