Robert Hood

Hood’s sizable fiction collection, Creeping in Reptile Flesh, has a true international flair — originally published in Australia in 2008, it was re-published in late 2011 by Sweden’s Morrigan Publications. I finally got a chance to crack the Hood, so to speak, and found this collection to be a little more of mixed bag than I expected. The primary issue I had with the collection was the extremely varied nature of its contents, which is so diverse as to seem a bit off-putting at times (although others may find that variety to be refreshing).

The title novella, which leads off the book, is probably the strongest tale here and, like the majority of the contents, has a strong, distinctive Australian flavor. The protagonist, a political reporter and confidante, is commissioned to investigate the recently-elected and somewhat mysterious Independent Member John Cowling, who represents the nascent “Feral Party.” Leonard’s investigation leads him into some strange territory indeed, including an assignation with a “tall, cadaverous woman” named Kyla Fauxair, who may not actually be among the living, and a trip to Cowling’s perhaps-chimerical home town deep in the Outback.

A strong understanding of Australian politics would no doubt aid in appreciating some of the details, but even those unfamiliar with government down under will still get likely get caught up in the intrigue and muckraking. It’s definitely a tale with an edge, and it’s unusual enough to keep the reader off-kilter and engaged. The tale is lessened somewhat, however, by several flashbacks and dream sequences that are interspersed almost at random, with no italics or other stylistic variation to distinguish them, making them somewhat confusing and jarring until the reader realizes what’s going on.

Another standout is “Groundswell,” a noirish bit about two Constables whose investigation of a series of possibly-related murders lead them to a remote, abandoned desert town. Effectively set in a near-future Australia,  where climate disaster has left much of the continent a literally unlivable place during the scorching heat of the day, there’s a sense of both otherworldliness and constance menace underlying everything, and the characters of the two Constables are well developed. When they spy a lone woman leaving the town, the Constables follow and discover the true cause behind the murders.

“Dreams of Death” starts with female Private Investigator Andy Wolfe meeting an amnesiac client who says he’s been having “dreams of murder”, and possesses intimate details of several recent deaths, all of which appeared to be accidents or suicides. Andy soon begins to suspect her client may well be guilty of murder, and focuses her investigation on him, leading the story into unexpected territory.

In “Lo Que No Asusta,” two old friends who attended university together 25 years previously have an awkward meeting, with the formerly charismatic Anthony now seeming haunted, preoccupied by a heavy fog enveloping the area surrounding their meeting place. Anthony proceeds to remind Alex of all the details he has forgotten about the night they graduated, when their fascination with the eponymous book of philosophy (which, translated, means “That Which Scares Us”) culminated. It turns out that technological advances of the following two decades have allowed Anthony to take their college experiments further, with dangerous consequences…  As with several other stories here, there’s a dramatic, unexpected revelation about a primary character at the conclusion.

Also worth mentioning are “Rotting Eggplant…” and “Unravelling,” both of which look at “macro” world-changing events through a micro focus on a handful of characters. The latter is more successful, but both are offbeat enough to stand out.

As described above, there are some definite high points to be found in Creeping in Reptile Flesh, but there are a few too many blemishes in the collection for me to be able to highly recommend it, unless you’re a reader who deeply appreciates a broad variety of tales under one hat.

As for me… I’ll be back in this space soon with more reviews — of books by Robert Hood, Nate Southard, and Peter Bell, for starters — as well as another round-up of newly-launced small presses.  As always, thanks for daring to tread on Twilight Ridge.

Published by Burning Effigy Press, the series features wisecracking Private Investigator Renn and is set in an alternate reality where portals exist between our world and a supernatural realm called the Black Lands. The first volume, Temporary Monsters, appeared in 2009 and starts things off with a bang as Felix’s lunch with his ex-wife Sandra is interrupted by a vampire ravaging a fellow diner. Renn’s reaction to the vampire provides a good sense of the wry humor on display here:

“I reached instinctively for my gun, then remembered I wasn’t wearing it. One shouldn’t come armed to lunch with one’s ex-wife. I think Confucius said that.”

Although appearances by vampires and other creatures are not necessarily uncommon, the fact that the vampire’s attack comes in broad daylight is unusual, and Felix becomes enmeshed in the ensuing investigation, which takes an interesting turn when it’s learned that the vampire is not some nameless creature from the Dark Lands, but actually a famous actor. Felix’s sleuthing takes him to a local movie set, where one of the stars suddenly transforms into a rampaging werewolf. Although Felix’s non-silver bullets should not harm the werewolf, they do, making two creatures in a row whose behavior does not match their established reputation. Digging deeper, Felix finds that the creatures have essentially been manufactured — “temporary monsters,” in a sense.

By the time we reach the second book in the series, 2010’s The Ash Angels, Felix’s ex-wife Sandra has become his assistant but not much else has changed for Felix, who on Christmas Eve is feeling maudlin and missing the more intimate relationship he formerly enjoyed with Sandra. And like any decent, self-respecting PI, he spends a fair amount of his time drinking, as described here:

“I came to the conclusion that while drinking straight whisky shots could be viewed as unhealthy, this could be alleviated if I had a mixer. A holiday mixer, in fact. Then I wouldn’t be pounding drinks straight from the bottle, I would be indulging in the sort of festive drinking that is permitted, practically encouraged, at everything from office Christmas parties to family get-togethers.

That was how I went out in search of eggnog and almost got myself and several other people killed.”

Felix’s quest for nog leads him into another supernatural encounter, although this one is more of a grim ghost story than the monster mash found in the first volume. This episode starts when Felix chances upon a possible crime scene — centering on a “snow angel” that’s actually made of ash — and has an impromptu meeting with members of the Paranormal Intelligence Agency, a governmental group that exists to try and keep natives of the Black Lands from intersecting too frequently, or too violently, with our world. Before all is said and done, a villain from Temporary Monsters resurfaces and several characters in this story, including Felix, are supernaturally influenced to attempt suicide. It’s probably not the feel-good Christmas story of the year, but it is a lot of fun.

Black-Eyed Kids, the most recent chapbook in the series, appeared in 2011 and it’s Rogers’ most accomplished work so far, featuring not only the familiar and welcome comedic touches but also the darkest and most chilling threat yet, in the form of the children referenced in the title. This time around, Felix is hired by a jealous husband to tail his wife, who he suspects of cheating. But while Felix is sitting outside the woman’s apartment, she’s murdered, half of her body goes missing…and the supposed husband is nowhere to be found, all of which leads to Felix’s failings being pointed out by a PIA member:

“‘I think the most unusual part of your story,’ Kovac said, ‘is that you were hired by a man named Barry to keep an eye on a woman named Mandy, and you never figured out he was using false names.’

‘That fact has been firmly established,’ I said curtly. ‘Moving on.’

Kovac remained silent for a long time. His face was impassive. I couldn’t tell if he was deep in thought or if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open.”

It turns out that the Black-Eyed Kids are seldom-seen, mostly-rumored denizens of the Black Lands, with a very special purpose — they come to our world for revenge, to hunt and kill humans who have made it a point to do the same to Black Lands creatures. Much to Felix’s chagrin, he’s now in their cross-hairs, and spends the remainder of the story trying to survive.

Ian Rogers tells three very entertaining stories here, especially so in the case of Black-Eyed Kids, which I heartily recommend.

Issued by new publisher West Pigeon Press, You Shall Never Know Security contains 13 stories, including five originals. The lead story, “A Lower Power,” provides good examples of both the positives and negatives to be found in Hamantaschen’s work. The plot is engaging — focusing on the narrator’s significant other, who has a rather dark secret that he unintentionally reveals during a middle-of-the-night transformation — there is some genuine frisson generated, and there are some memorable phrasings, such as: “First thing you’d notice about him: his hair is like a choreographed fight scene.” On the other hand, there are a few self-indulgent passages that fairly shout “Look Ma, don’t I write pretty?” and this is just the first of many stories to show how the author struggles to craft solid endings.

In “Come in, Distraction,” the mundane tale of a blasé pick-up artists and his latest conquest reveals a far more interesting story through casual comments and background details — namely, an unexplained wave of mass madness and murder that swept through England before the country was essentially vaporized to prevent the contagion from potentially spreading. In addition to the rage and insanity, the infected were also marked by a bizarre lengthening of their arms, as the protagonist reflects:

“He extended his arm, wondered what it would be like if it extended another thirty-feet, coiled up and folding upon itself like fancy drapes, claws dancing over her face.”

“Truth is Stranger Than Fiction” utilizes an interesting narrative technique, relating the story of a murder by way of a district court’s written response to a legal motion, although the approach falters when attempts are made to inject some drama into the drabness of the legalese. Hamantaschen frequently employs a theme of strangeness and horror just beneath the surface, and that features strongly in “There is a Family of Gnomes Behind My Walls, And I Swear I Won’t Disappoint Them Any Longer,” wherein the protagonist’s new roommate reveals that a book of arcane wisdom has led him to determine that behind the wall of their loft apartment lies a trigger of sorts, a means to elicit a reaction from forces beyond our world. The story’s painfully verbose title brings to mind the fact that, in many cases, the titles seem to be odd choices at best.

The closing novella “There Must Be Lights Burning Brighter, Somewhere” truly captures both the highs and lows of Hamantaschen. Related in a sophisticated style with interwoven flashbacks, it features an engaging premise, with main character Alex haunted by memories of an incident three years earlier, when a sudden invasion of a bar by otherworldly creatures forced him and two others to cower in a backroom closet in hopes of surviving the onslaught. Alex and Gabriel indeed survived the incident, but their closet companion Victoria did not, and it’s the details of her demise the plague Alex still. The story is unfortunately too drawn-out in places — like many tales here, it would have benefited from some judicious editing — and there’s some strangely laid-back dialog between the characters trapped in the closet that serves to sever the suspension of disbelief.

All in all, there’s too much of a sense of self-indulgence and seeming pretentiousness running throughout this collection for me to feel comfortable recommending it. Perhaps I’m being too mindful of the cover-copy author comparisons I mentioned earlier, and perhaps I’m being too hard on Hamantaschen, but I can’t shake the feeling that he won’t begin to approach his substantial potential as an author without a strong editor and some badly-needed maturity.

At its heart, Terra Damnata is a tale of anguish, loss, and regret, as personified by two very different couples who’ve both endured the tragic deaths of adult children.  It’s been less than a week since Arthur and Beth Woodbury lost their daughter Cherise to a drunk driver, but before they’ve even begun to come to terms with that event, they’re forced to deal with a bizarre intrusion upon their grief by millionaire Rupert Appleton, whose son Daniel was likewise killed by a drunken driver, several months previously. Since Daniel’s death, Rupert’s wife Hester has become obsessed with the idea that the unmarried Daniel will be spending eternity alone.

“She’d stumbled upon an old Chinese tradition where relatives of the dead would shower the grave with archaic objects to supposedly make the deceased’s afterlife more pleasant. When she started to leave some of Daniel’s childhood toys inside the vault, Appleton had sat in his darkened conservatory and cried.

Hester had also unearthed another ancient tradition, this one slightly more bizarre. Apparently some Chinese families of dead bachelors would buy corpses of unmarried women and bury them with their sons in posthumous wedding ceremonies, thus ensuring both spirits a smooth passage into whatever awaited them on the other side. Hester had become so enchanted by this idea that it seemed to Appleton a more effective outlet for the woman’s grief than five years of therapy. He’d agreed to buy Daniel a bride, someone his son might have connected with had both parties still been alive, if for no other reason than to satisfy his wife’s flailing spiritual belief. Yes, it was desperate; yes, it was obscene, but he was doing it, Appleton said, simply because he could.”

Arthur and Beth are, of course, initially inclined to rebuff Rupert’s overtures, but there are complicating factors that force them to reconsider. Arthur has a gambling addiction that has not only burned through the family’s savings but also led him to build up a substantial debt to casino owner Norman Foley who, not surprisingly, is an evil man who’s prepared to bring real harm to Arthur and his wife if the debt is not repaid. Faced with the loss of everything they have, and the real threat of physical violence, the Woodburys are forced to accept Rupert’s offer.

In possession of a check that will pay off his debt and leave him with plenty left over, Arthur’s first move is to return to the casino tables, a reaction sure to make most readers cringe in anticipation of a character intent on self-destruction. But Arthur is not a simple character, and all is not as it seems. Throughout, Cooper’s prose is rich yet precise, creating lasting images such as the one conjured by this description of Arthur’s return to Foley’s casino:

“There was a rich, hedonistic cloud of cigar smoke circling the room and six roulette tables spaced evenly along the posterior wall. Behind each table was a meticulously-dressed croupier, each one bearing the solemn demeanour of a pall bearer, understanding implicitly that each client was engaged in a personal duel, not against the House, but against chance itself and whatever demons their desire had conjured up.”

After Arthur’s re-entry into the world of gambling, he finds that he’s not finished with experiencing tragedy, either. To say much more would be to risk a spoiler, but suffice to say that Norman Foley has a central role in the proceedings. Terra Damnata is seemingly the perfect length, and the perfect style, for Cooper to show his stuff, and he certainly delivers the goods.

All of the stories have something to recommend them, but the standout is Jacob Ruby’s “The Little Things,” which starts out as a straightforward chronicle of a young girl who’s doing whatever she can to support her homebound mother and her… siblings, but gradually transforms into an exercise in sublime weirdness:

“Of course, there were many things that had fallen off of Mother, far too many to count, each living at least briefly on its own. From flakes of dried skin, hair, and moles to full tumors, everything she spouted came with its own life; what survived, Cassie named — what didn’t became a treat for the rest. Mother was a walking, breathing Garden of Eden, blessed with abundance from God.”

Also worthy of special mention is Simon Bestwick’s “The Churn,” in which the aging Alison Corbett suddenly starts experiencing bouts of dementia and apparent hallucinations as well. The people she should most be able to count on — her male companion Graham and the social services worker assigned to her — instead seem to be aligned against her.  Bestwick’s tale of an unreliable protagonist is fast-paced and intriguing, although I’m not sure if I understood everything the author wanted me to. Lack of complete comprehension was also a factor in Stephen Bacon’s “Cuckoo Spit,” the tale of a daughter visiting her ailing mother and renewing their contentious relationship. The meaning of the title is…interesting, if not exactly appetizing, and I’m not at all clear why it’s intrinsic to the story. Family relationships also figure prominently in V.H. Leslie’s “Family Tree,” wherein young Tyler Burrows tries to keep his mother from embarrassing him too much in front of his school-friends and tries to ensure his strangely absentee father stays out of sight. Ultimately, you could consider it a coming-of-age story of a son in a bizarrely dysfunctional family.

I don’t always agree with what Black Static’s three opinion columnists — Stephen Volk, Mike O’Driscoll, and Christopher Fowler — have to say, but their viewpoints are always interesting.  This time around, Volk offers a retrospective on recently-deceased filmmaker Ken Russell, O’Driscoll reviews the UK TV mini-series Black Mirror, and Fowler manages to effortlessly disparage a handful of films.

Tony Lee’s DVD review column, Blood Spectrum, covers 13 films, with highlights being A Vanishing On Seventh Street and a reissue of Rolling Thunder. Peter Tenant’s Case Notes book review column, meanwhile, includes interviews with Alison Littlewood and Cate Gardner, as well as a variety of reviews. As always, Black Static features exceptional design and four-color printing throughout. Add it all up and it’s another entertaining issue of the best regularly-published horror magazine going.

The opening story, “Out of Touch,” is a perfect example of what’s on offer here, as a man recollects a summer from his youth, when he and his ailing, infirm friend Mitch investigate a seemingly long-abandoned house that is strangely an  object of obsession for Mitch.  When the two boys visit the house,  there are dire consequences , but it’s unlikely that the specific nature of those consequences are what you expect. Looking back from his adult vantagepoint, the protagonist muses:

“Maybe the answer to everyone’s problems was staring us right in the face, and though we were all too blind to see it, I was the only one foolish enough to ruin it. Or, perhaps there are some things that will come for you no matter what you do, no matter where you hide. Some things are inevitable, and you can only hide from them for so long. Eventually they’ll find you.”

In “The Deafening Sound of Slumber,” the employees of a sleep-disorder clinic are kept in the dark about the true nature of the experiments being conducted by the clinic’s reclusive Director, and as a result allow two particular patients to come in contact with one another, with disastrous results, as alluded to here: “Fisher screamed, afraid to turn and face what was coming for him. It sounded of storms and mistakes and regrets.”

“Tend Your Own Garden” is rich in symbolism, focusing on a divorced man who returns to his former house, where his ex-wife lives with her new mate, in search of some items left behind in the basement, only to find that the layout of his former abode, in fact its very foundations, have shifted on him. “When Sorrows Come” involves a couple that’s still together, but in a clearly doomed relationship, on a vacation that’s not going well, when one of the pair chooses to take the path less traveled through the woods. The enigmatic “Mr. Kneale,” meanwhile, effectively utilizes the backdrop of horror conventions and fandom in relating the story of an author who abandons his literary approach and sells out, but at a rather stiff price.

Aickman preferred the term “strange stories” to describe his tales, and that’s an apt descriptor for Strantzas’ work as well, even if sometimes the point is somewhat elusive. A prime example is the impenetrable “Her Father’s Daughter,” in which a student on her way home from school to visit her father experiences car problems and calls upon the nearby home of two eccentric old sisters. Ambiguity follows, and I’m at a loss to say what else.

More often than not, though, even Strantzas’ overly-opaque efforts, like the somewhat meandering “An Indelible Stain Upon the Sky,” can offer up resonant passage of mystery and beauty such as this:

“I carry that image of her in my head still, and sometimes it amazes me it’s there at all when so many other things I wish I could recall have been forgotten. Memories are strange and elusive, yet they can return at a moment’s notice and from out of nowhere, appearing so vividly it feels as though time has not passed. But time has passed, and those memories that return most often have crashed just off the shore of my life, and the dark sweep of destruction continues to move toward me over the churning water’s surface.”

Best absorbed in small, potent doses, Nightingale Songs is a strong collection that shows Strantzas growing into the role of prime purveyor of strange stories for his generation.

But a potential danger of being so prolific is, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, the increased likelihood that quality may suffer due to to quantity… and I’m afraid I have to say that may be the case, at least to some degree, with both of their new novellas: McBride’s Blindspot and Curran’s The Underdwelling.

Published by Dark Regions Press, Blindspot is the tale of biomedical research scientist Dr. Parker Ramsey, who under the sponsorship of the U.S. Army has been developing a device to capture from the optic nerves of the recently-deceased the last image they saw before dying. Shortly after the story opens, Ramsey is spirited away to a remote area of North Korea, the apparent site of a recent nuclear accident. Escorted by a small group of elite special forces soldiers, Ramsey is there to field-test his prototype, which has to date been successfully tested only on laboratory mice.

Ramsey is kept in the dark about much of the mission, and spends a lot of time during the lengthy trek to the site wondering just why the hell he’s been clandestinely transported halfway around the globe. When the group finally arrives at its destination, there are no shortage of bodies from which to potentially harvest final “images of death,” but the condition of the corpses gives Ramsey pause because… well, suffice to say that the cause of death does not appear to have been from the effects of a nuclear explosion or subsequent radiation exposure.

Things only get stranger once Ramsey is able to test his device on the corpses. He’s thrilled to find that the device works just as expected, but the results unfortunately don’t shed any light on exactly what happened to the dead, due to a particular optical effect, cited in the book’s title:

“‘It’s the blindspot,’ Ramsey said… ‘Every eye has one. There are no photoreceptor cells at the point where the optic nerve enters the retina. No rods. No cones. No nothing.’”

On all the victims Ramsey surveys, their blindspot unfortunately blocks a portion of their final image in such a way as to block the view of their cause of death. I’ll refrain from offering any further details so as to avoid spoilers.

Blindspot features McBride’s usual great plotting and pacing, but his characters unfortunately border on stereotype. At least that’s my takeaway when you’ve got a gruff, cigar-chomping General, a group of stoic, macho soldiers, and a brilliant but insecure and somewhat socially awkward scientist. Of course, stereotypes often exist for a reason, and there’s probably more than a grain of truth in some of McBride’s characterizations…but the bottom line is that several of his characters here *do* seem superficial in terms of their traits, and that serves to detract from what is otherwise a captivating tale.

It’s worth noting that when one of the aforementioned characters — the lead soldier, Rockwell — steps out of his stereotype, it’s a jarring departure, as he suddenly launches into a detailed explanation of backstory, using some very unexpected language, such as:

“‘We were, however, able to able to conclusively determine from samples of the nearby soil, air, and water that there were no traces of nuclear byproducts. What we did find were a multitude of toxins, alkalyzing agents, and various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.’”

A more gradual and nuanced reveal of Rockwell’s character would likely have been beneficial.

As a big McBride fan, it’s a little concerning that this is the second consecutive book of his I’ve read (Predatory Instinct, which I read but didn’t review, was the first) where the stories have seemed very “cinematic” — meaning that they’re action-packed, well-paced, and would likely translate well to the big screen, but feature somewhat cliched characters and at times seem formulaic.

Even when operating on less than all cylinders, though,  McBride is still better than an awful lot of other writers out there. This is an entertaining novella, and many readers will likely be very enamored of it, but I think the author has done significantly better.

*  *  *

Turning to Curran, his novella The Underdwelling, published by Delirium Books, features an underground setting, which I’m usually a sucker for, generally strong character development, a taut storyline, and has no really significant flaws, but… I can’t escape the feeling that there’s a large amount of unrealized potential here, as there’s unfortunately little true frisson generated from what should be a chilling scenario.

The story is related from the perspective of Boyd, a recent hire at a the Hobart iron ore mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He’s about to go underground for the first time after a couple months of working up top, but is beset by vague premonitions of something *bad* about to happen. Despite his ill forebodings, Boyd figures he’s a miner at heart, just like his father, and he desperately needs the money, and so he rides the trolley down, into mine that stretches 2500 feet beneath the surface, with a mix of stubbornness and trepidation.

The characters he interacts with are an interesting mix, including Breed, a big man whose partial-American-Indian heritage is apparently reflected in his nickname; Maki, the requisite know-it-all jerk; the seasoned and confident shift boss Corey; and brainy but respectful mining engineer Jurgens. There’s some sharp-edged and realistic repartee between the parties, often involving the acerbic Breed.

Boyd is a quicker study than most of the others, and as a result Jurgens takes the time to explain to him the strangeness of the rock formations they’re seeing.

“See, Boyd, the ore is here, we just have to get through this goddamn limestone first.” He led Boyd over to the wall and knocked on the striated rock there. “This is all limestone laid down during the Permian.”
“Sure,” Boyd said. “Sedimentary rock. Layers of mud and sediment.”

Jurgens nodded. “That’s right. Thing is, it just doesn’t belong here. I mean, from a geologic standpoint, this is the first Permian rock ever found in Michigan. So that’s something, but there’s no goddamn ore in it. See, this part of Michigan is all old, very old Precambrian rock. Anywhere from 500 million to three or four billion years old. And this Permian strata is fairly new, roughly 250 million years old. It just doesn’t belong here.”

Given that this is a horror novella we’re talking about, it’s probably no surprise that the interlopers find that it’s not just the limestone that doesn’t belong there. They stumble upon, and almost into, a 400-foot deep hole that, according to Jurgens, was formed by glacial meltwater, but looks strangely artificial. Exploring the abyss is a must, to determine if it’s a threat to the mine’s overall stability, but Boyd is none too thrilled to be venturing even further into the abyss.

Upon plumbing the depths of the hole, they discover that there’s something alive down there, something that’s been trapped there for a very long time, and is very lonely…and very hungry. There *are* a few tense moments,and the well-drawn characters help to hold the reader’s interest, but as mentioned, the story never becomes truly frightening, and there are a lot of questions left unanswered. As a result I found The Underdwellinga bit underwhelming although, as always, your mileage may vary.

Five Degrees of Latitude,

All of the stories have a European (or British) antiquarian slant and display a predisposition for nested stories and male narrators with male companions, starting with “Le Loup-Garou,” wherein a string of disappearances in a secluded French village are investigated by the esteemed Professor Hortholary, whose deductive powers unravel  the mystery, leading to a dark denouement.  “Sika Tarn” likewise features a remote locale, as two hikers make their way through an overgrown forest to reach a deserted lake, where they find some unexpected abandoned machinery and hear some inexplicable sounds. The tale, which reminded me of Sarban’s work in some indefinable way, features an unexpected and unique supernatural entity.

The British countryside is the setting for “No. 3 Hobbes Lane,” wherein an occasional passenger on a train is intrigued by the sight of one house on a bluff that is seemingly facing the wrong direction, with no windows on the side of the house with the wonderful views. As with most of the stories, there is a strong sense of mystery here, and an (ultimately successful) investigation of the mystery — involving, in this case, tracking down the story of the architect who built the house and the supernatural causation for the way the house is situated.

“The Rumour Mill” is to my mind the weakest story here, although an ingenious idea lies at its heart, concerning some rather unusual experiments on the nature of rumors, the documentation of which is discovered by a Victorian academic rummaging through the papers of his vanished predecessor.

Much stronger is the final story, “The Visions of Lazaro,” which is particularly interesting for the way in which its true setting is effectively masked, with the initial appearance being that of sixteenth century Spain, while later events reveal a second narrative in a very different place — and time.

Nestled in “The Visions of Lazaro” and other stories are countless examples of simple yet elegant writing, replete with keen observations, such as the following:

“Vider sat down and placed his bag carefully on the table between us. He had lost the top joint of his finger in a mining accident; we had all lost something, I suppose.”

In spite of all the preceding praise, I have to offer a caveat — in my reviews, I’m known to frequently offer the qualifier that a particular book “is not for everyone,” and that observation is particularly true here.  The same thing that distinguishes the stories — the leisurely yet effective and stylistic recreation of other places and times — is the same thing that may limits appeal somewhat, as readers more enamored of contemporary milieus and styles may well find this collection to not be their cup of tea.

*  *  *

“A curtain of gnarled skeleton oak and pine hides it from the rest of the world. The hotel is not well-lit, there is no sign, and night comes early here. The main highway bypassed its access road nearly half a century ago. From the air…the hotel appears to follow the jumbled lines of a train wreck, cars thrown out at all angles and yet still attached in sequence.”

Excerpted from the opening paragraph of Steve Rasnic Tem’s Deadfall Hotel, the preceding is an apt and vivid description of the establishment that lies at the heart, literally and figuratively, of this fine novel from Centipede Press.

The novel’s jacket copy bills the book as “reminiscent of Ray Bradbury  and combining the atmosphere of Edward Gorey with the phantasmagoric richness of setting found in Mervyn Peake.” Personally, I see much more Gorey and Peake than I do Bradbury, with a strong helping of Charlie Grant, to whom Tem dedicates the book. But you can make up your own mind, since I will be quoting Tem extensively in this review.

Deadfall Hotel is ostensibly the story of Richard Carter and his daughter Serena, who are still trying to regain their equilibrium following the relatively recent death of wife and mother Abby, whose ghost has accompanied them to the Hotel.  But the real star here is the Hotel itself, which via Tem’s lush descriptions comes to halting, shambling life:

“Richard wasn’t listening to him. There were other sounds to hear. There was the soft inner breath that drifted through the Deadfall, higher pitched in the halls, dropping lower in the stairs and secret passages. There was the light tapping of guests who never left their rooms, their frenetic thoughts in tune with that breath. There was the distant crying of a white wolf with dying eyes. And there was the nearly inaudible laughter of his wife, his beautiful wife Abby, growing madder with every passing day of her death.”

Richard and Serena’s tale is interspersed with pithy observations from the journal of Jacob Ascher, the prior manager of the Deadfall, who recruited and hired Richard as his replacement, and has stayed on to provide prolonged training for Richard. An example from Jacob’s journal:

“We cannot escape our fears. Ultimately we must deal with them. We are but momentary blips of consciousness on the sea of time — we have but a limited time to do those things we are willing to do, to say those things we are willing to say. Our greatest challenge may be to face the sadness that knowledge entails. I’m afraid it is a test most of us will fail.”

And:

“I never imagined that training a replacement would prove to be so difficult.  I find I have increased respect for what my own predecessors must have gone through.  It is a delicate balance managing a new member of our family — we want him to be able to act independently, and yet we also want him to do what we want.  Prospective managers are selected from a pool of the traumatized, the wounded and damaged. And yet we expect them to be brave…

“When I look at Richard Carter, I see a frozen man, stilled by grief and impossible dilemma.  How can he protect his daughter?  How can he leave his wife behind a second time?  …. Perhaps we expect too much.”

If there’s a complaint to be had with Deadfall Hotel, it’s that, at the end of the day, precious little actually happens.  The book is more a character study — of Richard, Serena, Jacob and, of course, the Hotel — than anything else, and while the events that do occur help to shape the trajectory of Richard and Serena’s lives post-Abby, those events are somewhat few and far between.  The major plot points involve Serena’s adoption of a stray kitten, which turns out to be far more than just a cat; the arrival of a shape-shifting guest who, in the twilight days of his life has lost the fine-grained control he formerly held over his nature; and the annual foray by a large religious-revival group, the head of whom has some rather dire personal problems that he refuses to face.  Each of these makes for an interesting sub-plot, although at least one seems drawn out beyond comfortably-sustainable levels.

The book is rounded out by the novelette “Blood Wolf,” the original, stand-alone version of one section of the novel, and the short story “Skullbees,” also set in the Deadfall universe. All in all, I can heartily recommend an extended stay in the dark and distinctive confines of the Deadfall Hotel.

The story opens with a pitch-perfect two-page scene in which the protagonist, Richard, encounters a girl while on his way out of a movie theater:

She’s sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, tears running down her face, legs drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around them.

…

Her gaze softens then, and she returns my smile.
That’s how it begins.

Richard is recently divorced and relatively hapless when it comes to the opposite sex, but he somehow manages to convince the girl, Liana: 1) that he’s harmless; 2) to come back to his apartment; and 3) to stay with him (although he sleeps on the couch).

As Richard and Liana carefully and gradually dance their way towards a relationship of some sort, the scenes involving them are sublimely rendered, capturing the awkward tenderness between the pair. But rest assured that when they, er, culminate their relationship, the sex is…disturbing, to say the least. And when three strange men, who seem to know Liana, move into the apartment upstairs, things get really weird.

Via some masterful descriptions of a variety of unpleasant smells, Waggoner crafts a story that is almost sensurround in detail. The following descriptions makes one thankful that The Men Upstairs does not come in a scratch-and-sniff limited edition:

“She exudes a faint scent that reminds me of the Bradford Pear, a pretty-to-look-at tree whose white flowers smell like a mix of dried semen, unclean vagina, and rotting shrimp.”

“I catch a whiff of something that smells like sulfur laced with dirty diapers.”

“It’s a musty, metallic smell, one I can’t immediately place, but then it hits me. It’s like the stink of a zoo’s reptile house.”

“An unpleasant odor lingers in the air after him, an acrid tang of hot metal, like overheating electronics.”

Nasal nigtmares aside, the real question here is whether Waggoner can sustain the initial strong sense of mystery and surreality over the course of the story. Thankfully, the answer is yes.

On one level, Waggoner’s tale is a great riff on a situation that most of us have had to endure — rude, inconsiderate neighbors. On another level, it seems to be about the co-dependency that lives at the heart of far too many relationships. Regardless, The Men Upstairs qualifies as classic Waggoner.