Richard Gavin's Blog, page 28

REALM reviewed on Finland's Rising Shadow

The Darkly Splendid Realm has received a wonderful review on Rising Shadow, a Finland-based site dedicated to dark and weird literature. Reaching readers in different corners of the world is one of the most gratifying experiences I've known as a writer.

ZOMBIES! An Illustrated History of the Undead by Jovanka Vuckovic

Thus far 21st Century Horror has, in the mainstream at least, been dominated by a pair of time-tested bogies: the vampire and the zombie. While the former seems to have only enjoyed a spike in popularity after being de-fanged and sanitized in order to increase its teen appeal, the latter has more or less maintained its ferocious image while still growing to become a prominent emblem of our contemporary fears. There have been many books that chronicle the history of the sanguinary creatures of the night, but the genre was primed for a thoughtful, accessible survey of the shuffling, flesh-ravenous undead. Enter Horror aficionado Jovanka Vuckovic, whose Zombies! An Illustrated History of the Undead (St. Martin's Press, 2011) is a rich survey of this enduring subgenre.

The book itself is a thing of beauty. Lavishly illustrated with sharp reproductions of one-sheets, stills, and screenshots of just about every movie, book, video game, TV show, or comic that ever gave more than a passing glimpse at the walking dead, this is a visual feast of the first order; the kind of volume one enjoys simply looking at. Textually, Vuckovic does an admirable job digging back to the zombie's roots in voodoo lore and then moving through travel tales, pulp fiction, and early cinematic entries. With a clean, declarative prose style that is entertaining without being fluffy, the author ably chaperones the reader through ninety years'-worth of the undead.

Those familiar with Jovanka's journalistic honesty know that she never pulls punches and Zombies! is no exception. Whether calling out the xenophobia and racism of early zombie fiction and film, the misogyny of some '70s Eurohorror, or tearing a strip off some of the cash-grab "sequels" of recent years (Day of the Dead: Contagium I'm looking in your direction), this book is assuredly not a blanket endorsement for anything and everything cadaverous. There is a keen critical eye at work here. Even George A. Romero, father of the modern zombie film and author of this book's Foreword, is called to task for some of his recent missteps, while more under-appreciated titles like Romero's Day of the Dead and Dan O'Bannon's Dead & Buried (1981) are given their due.

If you've just stumbled upon the gut-munching subgenre by way of contemporary sensations like The Walking Dead, or are a hardcore connoisseur who never misses a zombie walk, lines up in front of Best Buy any time a new installment of Resident Evil is released, and can recite Return of the Living Dead verbatim (as sadly I, and I'm sure Jovanka, can) Zombies! An Illustrated History of the Undead is essential reading. Copies can (and should!) be had here.

The Fog People

Though it might not be immediately apparent in my fiction, I am greatly influenced by, and enamoured with, realist writers. Authors such as Raymond Carver, Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, and Cormac McCarthy inspire me every bit as much as Lovecraft, Campbell, Liggotti, Barron.

Lately I've been revisiting the brilliance of Eugene O'Neill. In this clip from Long Day's Journey into Night, Dean Stockwell delivers a soliloquy that, in my opinion, touches upon the ineffable every bit as well as the tales of Machen or Blackwood.

I strive for the genuinely uncanny in my fiction; for moments of stark, palpable, transcendental terror. But this is always, *always* footed in genuine humanness.

We did not build the constellations, but we named them. And by naming them, we forged a bond with them.

We are the fog people. In all our majesty and our monstrosity, our wretchedness and our divinity. We are the ghost story.

The Secret Life (and Death) and New Life of Laird Barron

I am not a man who has casual interests. I am a man of obsessions. One of these obsessions involves writers whose work I admire. It is never enough for me to simply enjoy their most notable publications, I have to read everything. I follow their anthology appearances, read any interviews I might come across, reflect upon their work; its own merits and how it fits in the Horror canon.

Sometimes I even write to them. Such was the case with so-called Laird Barron.

It started out so innocently. I was a fan, you see. I bought "Laird"'s first collection, swapped a few emails with him. We hit it off. He was one of those writers who seemed interested in what other writers were up to, even small potatoes writers like me. In 2009 I bashfully asked "Laird" if he would be good enough to read the ms. for my next collection, perhaps write a blurb. "Laird" accepted and graciously penned a Foreword that brought my book great attention.

'What a swell guy!' thought I. And so I kept collecting, kept digging. And my compulsion unearthed something very disturbing...

In a rare 1993 issue of Fear Inc. I discovered a story called "The Shiva Effect" by...Laird Barron! Not so shocking, you might say. An early draft of "Shiva, Open Your Eye" perhaps. And upon reading the piece I found that it was certainly similar. But the real surprise came when I read a short interview with this Laird Barron.

This Laird Barron lived in Seattle. But he was born there. And his smudged author photo shows Laird Barron to be one of those Tai Chi/Chai Tea fellows; spindly, spiritual, kinda frail. You know the type.

This Laird Barron also mentions that he was working on a collection called Imago Tales.

But the real shocker came when I read Mr. Barron admit that:

"[my] stories have limited appeal, it seems that those who like them, really like them. I've gotten some nice letters recently from an Alaskan fellow who, funnily enough, says he plans to move to Seattle soon. He's actually a strength trainer with writing aspirations. So we're making a deal: he's going to whip me into shape and I'm going to give him writing lessons. "

Whip into shape indeed. I did some digging of my own. I made some phone calls to longtime residents of the neighbourhood, who recall a rather imposing looking "Viking type" skulking about the neighbourhood. Sometimes this odd man would be with the real Laird Barron, other times alone.

Laird Barron (the spindly one) vanished in 2001. Conveniently, the same year that "Shiva, Open Your Eye" appeared in F&SF with a "Laird Barron" byline.

But it doesn't stop there.

Fact: a concerned neighbour(who had been less than pleased when the new "Laird" came stumbling out of the house, nude and drunk as a poet on payday at nine a.m., tossed all the previous occupant's teas, yoga mats, and medicine balls into the neighbour's yard, screaming that the only gods he worshipped were his own two fists) sent Seattle Police to the home of Laird Barron in 2002.

The burly Alaskan, who by then had taken up residence in the house told the authorities that he was actually Laird Barron's SON, also named Laird Barron. When asked, this grizzly bear of a man told police "I'm not Laird Barron II, 'cause I'm NUMBER ONE! You hear me? ONE!" When one officer suggested that if this story was true, perhaps he could simply add "Jr." to his name to avoid confusion, this officer wound up in traction.

Fact: "Laird Barron" released The Imago Sequence in 2007. My investigations reveal that the delay of several years was solely due to "Laird's" penchant for drunken strongman contests and bare knuckle boxing with the local Shriner's....none of whom actually *wanted* to box this man, but that's another story.

So, now here we are. "Laird" is on the scene. But now we're on to "Laird."

What did you do with him? Where is the body? Do you really expect us to believe that you just emerged from the wilds of Alaska with such a surplus of talent, mister? Please.

There is a bigger problem here: This new "Laird" has ingratiated himself into the genre. Ellen Datlow loves his work. This towering fraud has won awards. And, worst of all, he is starting to champion other writers. Now that you've stripped the creative mine of the original Laird Barron clean (two acclaimed collections and a new novella is not a bad haul) I ask you, who is next? Whose life will you infiltrate now?

Look how many Forewords this man has penned, people! Do you think it's out of generosity? No one is safe, I tell you! I myself have taken measures with Canadian authorities so that if/when Laird decides to "relocate" to Ontario, my wife will not wake up to find me gone and a large unclothed man rummaging through our cupboards in search of raw meat and porno.

The cat's out of the bag now, Mr. "Barron." The circle is closing. The spec. fic. world will not be victim to your predatory kindness anymore!

CHILLING TALES Launch

The official launch for the anthology Chilling Tales is being held on Saturday, March 19th at Bakka-Phoenix Books (84 Harbord St., Toronto). The event runs from 3pm until 6pm and features the following contributors:

Michael Kelly (editor), Leah Bobet, Suzanne Church, Michael Colangelo, Gemma Files, Richard Gavin, Brent Hayward, Sandra Kasturi, David Nickle, Ian Rogers, Brett Savory, and Simon Strantzas.

Come say hello, get your book signed, be afraid.

The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan

There are few stylists I admire more than Caitlin R. Kiernan. Her prose is, in my humble opinion, exemplary of what can...no, what should be done with dark fiction. It is lush without being baroque, earthy but never banal. And this is to say nothing of her cyclopean imagination, or her ability to draft characters so resonant with the flawed outsider in us all that one feels their heart being squeezed through the page.

I am not much of a novel reader. But Ms. Kiernan's novels are ones I actually look forward to because, unlike a number of writers who simply pad and stretch anaemic storylines until they reach a commercially viable page-length, Caitlin R. Kiernan's novels unfurl as tales that demand the longer narrative. There is no padding, only layers, textures, shades.

Never was this truer than with her 2009 novel The Red Tree.

I shan't bother summarizing the plot here, but will instead praise the novel's ingenuity. Yes, it is a haunted house story. But it is the most startlingly original take on the concept since Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Kiernan strips away the trite conventions of the perfect family who moves into their dream home, only to find their Norman Rockwell lifestyle disrupted by the great Other. Instead she presents us with Sarah Crowe, a young woman who carries several ghosts of her own; ghosts of troubled relationships, of loss, of pain.

In other words, the ghosts we all cart within our heads and hearts.

The house and the titular tree in its environ exude both terror and beauty. While there are scenes of raw terror in The Red Tree (it is the first book in a long while to actually frighten me), the book is also a feast for those who enjoy the aesthetics of the weird tale; the uncanny, that sense of the ancient and the ineffable.

If there is any justice in the world, The Red Tree will go on to be hailed as a classic of fantastic literature.

Copies can (and should) be had here.

News Feast

H.P. Lovecraft's "The Hound" has long been one of my favourite short stories, the author's own dismissals of it as a "piece of junk" notwithstanding. For years I've wanted to tap its grimly obsessive world, and recently an anthology invitation from the great Joe Pulver inspired me to do just that.

"Faint Baying from Afar; an Epistolary Tale After H.P. Lovecraft's 'The Hound'" will be appearing in the anthology Aklonomicon, due later this year from the newly-formed Aklo Press.
My story will feature art by none other than Lovecraftian legend Dave Carson. I'm humbled and awed.

On other fronts, my friend Hopfrog tells me that the March/April issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is starting to ship. This issue features "Night Gauntlet," the Lovecraftian round-robin by Don Webb, Robert M. Price, Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, Walter C. DeBill Jr., Jeffrey Thomas, and your grue-ly.

Also, Chilling Tales , Michael Kelly's staggeringly good all-Canadian Horror anthology from EDGE Publishing, will be haunting bookstores on March 1st. It features my own "King Him," along with new works from Barbara Roden, Ian Rogers, Gemma Files, Jason Ridler, Simon Strantzas, etc.

2011 has been a staggeringly good year thus far. Is it really only February??? MythosCon was a tremendous quickening for me. I've got many other irons in the fire at present and will be making announcements in due course.

The small presses of Horror are shooting off sparks these days. The number of great writers producing great books for great editors is dizzying.

BENEATH THE SURFACE by Simon Strantzas

The older I get, the more demanding I become with the fiction I read. With contemporary Horror, I confess I read relatively little of it. This is not to suggest that I have a keen critical eye, or that the books I choose not to read are in any way lacking. The plain truth is that I'm extremely particular. If I am to read a work of Horror, I require it to enrich my life rather than siphon time from it. And in order to enrich my life, said work must be a feast; plump with all the flavours and scents and shadings that the past masters evoked in their time.

Alas, too many writers seem to have forgotten, or perhaps are not concerned with, what Le Fanu called "the aesthetic of terror." Fortunately, my good friend Simon Strantzas is in that minority of contemporary authors who strive to evoke the nightmarish, the weird, as is evidenced by his 2008 debut collection Beneath the Surface (recently rescued from obscurity by Dark Regions Press). In short, Simon's first book had/still has everything I look for.

From the grimy gnosticism of the Liggotian "It Runs Beneath the Surface," to the dusty, truly oneiric "You Are Here," Beneath the Surface strives to present the nightmarish in an undiluted form. This is far more difficult than simply sloughing off "odd for the sake of odd" stories that go nowhere. It is a skill that few Horror authors even attempt, let alone succeed at.

When BtS first appeared in 2008, Simon became one of those writers I knew I could really learn from. (I learn from many of my author friends. Fortunately, I'm blessed with having many of the field's best and darkest as my companions.) While the nature of its contents removed any hope of mainstream success, I was nonetheless optimistic that the book would make substantial waves. Stephen Jones certainly thought highly of it, as did those weird tale aficionados who were lucky enough to acquire a copy before the publisher's implosion led to Beneath the Surface slipping, well, beneath the surface before its time.

In the interim, Simon released Cold to the Touch, an equally excellent collection, though one vastly different from the book at hand. Because the new Dark Regions reprint followed Simon's second, and more widely known, book, there are many who seem to view Beneath the Surface as the author's humble beginnings, a touchstone from which he grew and evolved as a writer.

I disagree.

Beneath the Surface does not "lack" elements such as snappy dialogue or more dynamic protagonists. Those elements are simply not the point of this kind of weird tale. Nor are these stories in any way incomplete. They are expressions of the ineffable, decadent visions in which the grotesque *is* the point.

I think BtS is Simon's crowning achievement thus far, because it is a rare thing; a phantasmagoria. If reading truly is a form of dreaming-while-awake, then think of this book as waking nightmares. Showing the world as you see it is not the point here. Like all great weird tales, Simon's stories are about *an impression* of the world, a glimpse, a chance-sighting that moves to its own alien rhythm.

Simon explains himself far better than this in his new Afterword. I urge all of you to pick up a copy of this feast, seasoned as it is with strange shadings from afar.

Beyond the utmost pylonsof life's limitan endlessly echoi...

Beyond the utmost pylonsof life's limitan endlessly echoing gongreverberates my anguish

and throngs with eerie songthe shadow-haunted placewhere sound itself lies dumband weaves its mantras out of space.
--- "Beyond the Pylons"Kenneth Grant ( 23 May 1924 - 15 January 2011)

Don Webb

Don Webb is one of the more authentically interesting figures in the Horror/Weird fiction realm. From his non-fiction books of occult philosophy to his genre-warping novels like Essential Saltes, Don has a unique stance on the universe, and a narrative style you can spot at fifty yards.

Of all his vehicles of expression, the occult terror tale is one arena where few equal Don in ingenuity and sheer storytelling ability. His 2006 collection When They Came , published by Temporary Culture, is a veritable feast for seekers of the Weird. Here be cosmicism of the first order, delivered with a raconteur's innate ability to pull you in and lead you along.

Webb's work often puts me in mind of Shirley Jackson's, not only in its earthy feel, but also because of the apparent ease with which he unfurls his narratives. Don Webb is one of those writers who makes it look easy, even though deep down you know it was not.

Philosophical, funny, and grim all at once. Highly recommended.