Klein (Pickman’s Press, 2021)Ī man is born of modest means on a Scottish sheep farm. Reassuring Tales: Expanded Edition, by T.E.D. I have been in a similar situation several times, though fortunately I did not encounter the terror of a ghost train car. I can certainly see that a claustrophobe would find being stuck in a dark tunnel with no explanation pretty scary. Knifepoint Horror: The Transcripts, Volume 1, by Soren Narnia (self-published, 2018)Īs someone who rides the Washington DC subway system-where this story is set-about ten times a week during a normal work week, this one meant something to me. That premise would normally be right up my alley, but not so here. This is a tale of the reunion of a film maker named Partridge and some of his former associates, one of whom has learned how to communicate with a hyperintelligent insect colony. I find it so odd that this would be the one Laird Barron story that the VanderMeers selected for inclusion it’s practically the last Barron story I would have included had I been editing the thing. It’s an early work and that might explain it. It seems so vague and diffuse I find it very different than the rest of Barron’s fiction, which is usually so pointed, with a real story to tell. I have genuinely loved almost everything I’ve ever read by Barron. The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer (Tor, 2012) Muncing is a secular exorcist/occultist who is brought in to deal with a family in which the wife has accidentally summoned up what they believe may be an elemental, who is sapping the life force from her inform brother. The Black Magic Omnibus, edited by Peter Haining (Taplinger, 1976)
While I really appreciated the philosophical underpinnings of Klein’s “Ladder,” my favorite story of the week was probably Soren Narnia’s “tunnel,” perhaps because I ride the subway in DC many times a week so the premise really gets me. Next week that one is going to be replaced by Dracula Unfanged in our line-up. Welcome to Week 269 of my horror short fiction review project! We bid farewell to one of our collections this week: The Black Magic Omnibus, which has had a real mix of hits and misses.
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