Learn the ABC’s of Horror with Mark Morris

Learn the ABC’s of Horror with Mark Morris

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The first four volumes of the ABCs of Horror anthology series, edited by Mark Morris
and published by Flame Tree Press. Covers by Nik Keevil and Flame Tree Studio

I miss the days of the paperback horror anthology. The great horror anthologists of the late 20th Century — Peter Haining, Sam Moskowitz, Charles L. Grant, Karl Edward Wagner, David Hartwell, and others — curated dozens of volumes of top-notch fiction that kept me thrilled and entertained many a late night, and introduced me to countless new authors in the process.

Mark Morris has been working hard to recapture that old-school magic with a brand new series of anthologies, all of which feature new work from the top names in horror today — including Ramsey Campbell, Grady Hendrix, John Langan, Simon Strantzas, Nathan Ballingrud, Christopher Golden, Seanan McGuire, Steve Rasnic Tem, Alison Littlewood, Josh Malerman, Tim Lebbon, Angela Slatter, Michael Marshall Smith, Simon Bestwick, Robert Shearman, Stephen Volk, Catriona Ward, Paul Finch, Priya Sharma, Aliya Whiteley, Lisa Tuttle, Lynda E. Rucker, Nina Allan, Brian Evenson, Peter Atkins, Mark Gatiss, Simon Clark, Helen Marshall, and many, many more.

Mark Morris posted his first article at Black Gate on Sunday (a rave review of the Netflix series The Fall of the House of Usher, which he calls a masterpiece,) and while we were chatting I asked him about his inspiration and plans for the series. His response was interesting enough that I thought I’d share it with you here.

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Five Things I Think I Think (January, 2024)

Five Things I Think I Think (January, 2024)

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It’s the first 2024 version of Ten Things I Think I Think – albeit, in abbreviated form. And awaaaay we go!

1) ARCHER KNOWS HOW TO DO HOMAGE

Back in November’s What I’m Watching post, I mentioned I would talk about Archer Later. I’m not yet ready to do a deep dive, but I want to give a shout out for a couple seasons I just watched.

The adult cartoon just wrapped up its fourteenth and final season, last month. It had its ups and downs, but it was terribly wrong and almost always funny, for 144 episodes. Archer is the chief spy at the international Secret intelligence Service. The fact that their name is ISIS, tells you all you need to know about this satirical show. Archer is the most self-absorbed, irresponsible person imaginable, and his office mates are all terribly flawed as well (though Lana is pretty close to normal).

A lot happens over fourteen seasons (I’m on season eleven). A few seasons take place with Archer in a coma – they’re dream seasons. The first of those was an homage forties hardboiled/noir. Centered on The Maltese Falcon, with a dash of Chinatown thrown in, I LOVED it. Visually it was wonderful. As a fan of the genre, it was clear that the show’s staff were as well. Still ‘wrong’ in that Archer way, it was a terrific take on the genre. Extremely well done.

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Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a Masterpiece

Netflix’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a Masterpiece

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The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix, October 2023)

Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a masterpiece.

I say this having recently finished watching the final episode. And yet, a couple of episodes in, I was feeling a bit ambivalent towards the series, wondering how it could possibly sustain itself over 8 episodes.

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More Tales of Twilight and Borderlands : Time of Passing by John Gaskin

More Tales of Twilight and Borderlands : Time of Passing by John Gaskin

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Time of Passing by John Gaskin (Tartarus Press, August 20, 2023)

This is the fifth and apparently the last collection of short stories by John Gaskin, an excellent author of ghostly tales who has been entertaining and fascinating his readers for more than twenty years. Most of his books have been published by the independent British press Tartarus Press. An elegant, classy imprint for an elegant classy writer.

In the present volume Gaskin reproposes a few of his previous stories in a revised version.

“The Gathering “ is the masterful report of the dramatic last reunion of a group of friends during a frightening storm, while “Avernus” is a dark, unsettling story revolving around a mysterious and dangerous amulet.

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

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If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!”

Ebenezer Scrooge

 

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, published first in 1843, is nearly two hundred years old, and nothing remains to be said about it, it would seem. Charles Dickens’s fairy tale has become one of the great secular staples of the Christmas season. It’s been filmed many times; both wonderfully as in the Alastair Sim 1951 and George C. Scott 1984 versions and less wonderfully in the Reginald Owen 1938 film and the 2010 Jim Carrey motion capture monstrosity. Furthermore, there have been animated adaptations, musicals, and comics. It’s an isolated person, I suspect, who doesn’t know at least the basic setup: the uplifting story of a cold-hearted miser who turns to the good after the visitation of a trio of ghosts representing the spirit of the season. All I can do is comment on the bits that stood out for me while liberally quoting from this mordantly funny novel and Gothic fantasy of redemption.

The story is told by an omniscient narrator who intrudes on the story constantly, digresses from the narrative, and questions the reader at every turn. The opening words of A Christmas Carol, or at least a fair gloss on them, are well-known, particularly the seventh sentence: “Old Marley was a dead as a door-nail.” It’s a blunt matter-of-fact statement that lets the reader know where things stand. The narrator, though, immediately continues with something else.

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Goth Chick News: It’s January, So Let’s Start Our 2024 WTF File…

Goth Chick News: It’s January, So Let’s Start Our 2024 WTF File…

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Writing a column called “Goth Chick News” is pretty much a dead giveaway that I love almost everything to do with the horror genre. I have, in past posts, made clear exceptions for what I call “sociopath training films” (Saw franchise, I’m looking at you), as well as examples of violence for violence’s sake such as haunted attractions like those explored in the Hulu documentary Monster Inside.

These exceptions have huge fan-bases and I make no judgment. They are just not my thing. It perhaps sounds weird to say, but to me, being scared is only entertaining when it doesn’t depict something that I could find on the True Crime channel. However, that’s not to say I still don’t frequently stare at my computer monitor and say “WTF” to it like I expect it to explain itself.

So, as we embark on this brave new year, I had to tell you about my first slow clap of 2024.

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From Mystery to Horror: Darker than You Think by Jack Williamson

From Mystery to Horror: Darker than You Think by Jack Williamson

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Darker Than You Think (Fantasy Press, 1948). Cover by A. J. Donnell

Jack Williamson had an impressively long career in science fiction, from the pre-Campbell era into the twenty-first century. His first sale, in 1928, was to Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories; his last book came out in 2005, the year before his death at 98. Darker than You Think is one of the high points of that career, published in 1948 as a novel expanded from a 1940 novella that appeared in John W. Campbell’s fantasy magazine Unknown.

Despite this venue, though, Darker than You Think is highly rationalized “fantasy,” to the point where it’s more accurately described as science fiction. Near the end of the novel, an important secondary character, Sam Quain, tells the protagonist that “supernatural” really means “superhuman.”

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The StoryGraph: To Help My 2024 Goals. Join Me?

The StoryGraph: To Help My 2024 Goals. Join Me?

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Hello, Readers!

It’s 2024 already. How? How did that happen?!

Like many of you (I suspect), I’ve added ‘read more’ to my goals for this year. I try not to make resolutions, but rather goals. It feels a little less pushy and more gentle. You still have something to strive for, but it somehow feels less harsh. Anyway, I have very limited time, so reading so often finds itself on the back burner.

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The Best of Bob – 2023

The Best of Bob – 2023

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Happy 2024! Let’s kick butt for another year. Or at least, limp to the finish in 52 weeks. I take what I can get.

One of my greatest talents as a blogger, is finding folks more talented than I, to write my weekly column for me. Hey – the reader gets a better end product, so they win, right? I brought Talking Tolkien to Black Gate in 2023. And I had some great help yet again for A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

So some of you Black Gaters may be surprised that I occasionally actually write my own essays for the Monday morning slot. John O’Neill is too savvy an editor for me to completely fool him for almost ten years.

So here are what I thought were ten of my better efforts in 2023. Hopefully you saw them back when I first posted them. But if not, maybe you’ll check out a few now. Ranking them seemed a bit egotistical, so they’re in chronological order. Let’s go!

Don’t Panic! We’ve Got Douglas Adams Covered Here at Black Gate (January 2, 2023)

If I do say so myself, things absolutely started off strong, the second day of the new year! Black Gate has a bunch of Douglas Adams fans. This was my eighth Adams-related post, and I included links to five prior posts by Black Gaters (Steven H Silver, and M. Harold Page).

Thirteen posts about Douglas Adams. SURELY you can find something interesting. This current post included me fooling around with a new entry for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think it’s pretty funny. And if you’re not familiar with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, that’s actually my favorite Adams book. Click on this one and get a larf.

 

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 58 Now Available

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly # 58 Now Available

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Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #58 hit the electronic shelves on November 26th.  We’ve got three stories and three poems — a full complement!

Fiction Contents

“Dragon Tears Part II,” by Caleb Williams.  Exiled sorcerer-scribe Larohd du Masiim continues his quest to  gather the rare artifacts needed to gain back his lost love, the princess Yadira.  Catch up with Part I here.

“Isle of the Thousand-Eyed Strangler,” by R. A. Quiogue.  Quiogue returns to our pages with a tale of fantasy south-seas derring-do among the Perfumed Isles.   Young prince Pandara, driven to piracy after the Wulongan Empire has laid waste to his home island, becomes embroiled with the last surviving priestess of a cult of the mythical sunken land of Sundramala.

“The Third Way,” by Darrell Schweitzer.  A classic reprint!  Grion, the faithful servant of the great warrior Mazantes, flees with his master, along with anyone else who can, from the implacable wrath of Garadis and his army of monsters.  But their flight takes them to strange otherworlds where they hope to make a most desperate gamble.

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