Rachel Smith's Blog: Guinea Pigs and Books, page 12

Yes, more Tales of the Weird, but they’re set on the day and there’s gibbering.

154. Spirits of the Season: Christmas Hauntings – Ed. Tanya Kirk

Actually taking place on Christmas ghost stories that included some really creepy ones from Marjorie Bowen and A.M. Burrage. The one by A.M. Burrage, “Smee,” managed to not be at all about the character from Peter Pan and make hide and seek way creepier than ever necessary. It also includes the ubiquitous M.R. James, but also E. Nesbit and “The Curse of the Catafalques” from F. Anstey which includes several lines about gibbering that were very funny to me.

This was a collection of pretty wide variety and I don’t think there was a dud in the bunch. I also know I’ve read “The Demon King” by J.B. Priestley before, and certainly I’ve had time since it was published in 1931, but I cannot remember where I saw it previously at all, which is a bit vexing. So far what I’ve read from the line of Tales of the Weird from the British Library has really been worthwhile and I highly recommend these collections, at least the ones for the winter solstice and Christmas time. They’ve also got great cover illustrations.

 

One thing Ozma could not do was gibber. I guess she also couldn’t be creepy, not even on Christmas.

“It started with the wind, on a cold night, much like this.”

151. Sunless Solstice: Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights – Ed. Lucy Evans & Tanya Kirk

From the series of publications British Library Tales of the Weird, Sunless Solstice collects tales from the 1890s to the 1970s (which I wasn’t expecting) that are perfect for the Christmas tradition I certainly did not grow up with of having ghost stories on Christmas. It wasn’t until I could not see my family at all for Christmas that I realized I could way more heavily be indulging in holiday horror and traditions like this one that I didn’t know about because I was busy. I have also lost several pigs around the Christmas holiday, so I do have my own personal melancholy every year and it’s nice for me to have some Christmas options that aren’t meant to be pleasant. I also now watch the Wellington Paranormal Christmas special if I do want something pleasant.

Unlike the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas DVD set, the stories in this are actually Christmasy. I, not knowing anything about the ghost story tradition, fully expected the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas to be all stories set on Christmas and if they wanted to start that up again, they should use the British Library Tales of the Weird collections centered on Christmas as the basis. It would involve less M.R. James, the Santa of BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas, but, there are more authors and more ghost tales to enjoy. And in Sunless Solstice, a vengeful cat, like in Iceland but without the clothing requirements.

Anyway, there are a lot of ghosts in Sunless Solstice and the one from Muriel Spark is super weird, but also great (shocker). There’s also the like worst uptight husband ever in “The Apple Tree” and an appearance by a major player of the Christmas ghost tradition in “Mr. Huffam.” There’s even a story about mountain climbers and one by someone named Lettice. I really enjoyed this collection in no small part because there were little introductions to each of the stories that gave some information about their authors and some are fairly obscure writers, which is just really an excellent way to give them some page space and readers an opportunity to finally discover their work so they can also be haunted by the ghost of opportunities lost for those writers.

 

Pickles is wondering if that Lettice author was eaten by mistake and that’s why they’re not more widely known?

Isolation and research, it has all the things.

122. The Hollows – Daniel Church

In Barsall in the Peak District, Constable Ellie Cheetham is kind of stuck. She’s not in charge of the two person police there, she’s really feeling the differences between dealing with one very grimy criminal family and all the different criminals of Manchester, and she’s stuck in an epic tale of folk horror and doesn’t even know it.

The grimy family knows what the deal is before anyone else does because their place was chosen many ages ago to be the ones who know about “them” and what’s coming once they start leaving their mark around. From the first frozen body found to the confrontations via tractor and a group of women banding together to get things sorted, it’s really a great story. It’s got action, creepy shit, ancient lore, dread, and research that doesn’t leave just a vague impression of what’s going on even though it’s not really clear if anything they’re doing will vanquish all the foes. This is folk horror done right for me.

 

Wisting’s heard quite a bit of true crime and folk horror stories while living with me, so, he’s ready to protect the herd from the Tatterskins and then write a report about it.

 

“I don’t want to seem overly bitter, but I’d appreciate it if you would destroy all of his belongings.”

81. A Cold Season – Alison Littlewood

Cass has lost her husband, has weird feelings about her father, and has to raise her son on her own – where better to do that than where the weird feelings originated? A small village, where it’s not cool with the other moms that Cass is obviously being looked at by the apparently attractive (but he didn’t sound attractive and that’s not just my own idiosyncrasies talking) new principal Mr. Remick.

Cass and her son Ben live in a renovated mill turned to apartments, but there’s only one done, and there are rats running around the unfinished building just to make it awful. However, for some reason they don’t swarm the one apartment with food in it (there’s a little coverage of this but rats are smart enough to find the food and gnaw through the door, so scary).

Anyway, Cass gets cut off from her work by endless snowing that takes out the phones (I remember the phones needing to work to have internet, that terrible noise, the endless download times, patience was a virtue) and she’s trying to make a friend or two but it just keeps getting a bit strange or she doesn’t know which person is actually trustworthy.

This gets a little folk horror, which I love, with standing stones and symbols of the pagan past, and the cultish behavior of the villagers. Cass also gets suitably unmoored while her son gets really bratty and starts to be a real joiner. My first reading experience with Littlewood was not great, but this is her first novel and it was a lot better than I expected. Good old snowy dread.

 

Peregrine wishes I hadn’t brought that up about the rats. Me too, actually. Of Unknown Origin haunts me to this day.

The gold standard for creepy kids in a group.

74. The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham

This is the novel that Village of the Damned is based on. And I have to say, I was expecting more menace from the children. I don’t recall any scenes where they all looked intimidatingly at someone at the same time with their glowing golden eyes. In here, those creepy children are two sets of hive minds – one for the girls, one for the boys, so they don’t come together to explode people’s brains like Scanners or anything. Fine.

Even without a fully collective evil version of the Care Bear stare on the page, this is a good story and yet still felt like too much is off the page for me. I saw all the movies first; I don’t think that helped me. I still liked it. I did keep picturing the George Sanders (1960) version of Zellaby, who really does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of dealing with the Children and explaining them in the book.

In the 1960 film there is a more psychic element coming off the Children too, which leads to the final showdown. In the book it’s more the Russians killing off the last other colony of Children besides Midwich that sets it all off. It’s both more global and more local in The Midwich Cuckoos than in either Village of the Damned, but I guess they cover that a little bit more in Children of the Damned.

 

Camille’s version of the evil child psychic stare, or even the Care Bear stare, involves suspicion and just one eye. She acts a little bit like my Pickles, but she hasn’t got her powers.

 

“Buildings have people in them. We’d better go investigate.”

152. Murder in the Falling Snow – Ed. Cecily Gayford

While I love that title, I did not really enjoy this collection. It turns out amateur detective and crime short stories are not my cup of tea. There are several of these crime short story collections with great titles like A Very Murderous Christmas and Murder in Midwinter, and of course this one, which also has a great title and they all have classic authors.

Murder in the Falling Snow included the first work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring Sherlock Holmes that I have ever read, and yet, I did not really enjoy it. Most of the stories were a bit of a slog for me and I am apparently not a fan of the conclusions involving listening to someone talk and explain the whole thing; it’s a bit like when Stan on South Park starts telling you about how he learned something today…while I love South Park, that’s still an “it is what it is” sort of moment whenever it happens and it’s funniest when it gets subverted.

One story did involve an actual ghost, but it also involved a lot of talk about train lines and embezzling and, frankly, there are more interesting crimes to become a ghost with unfinished business over. I mean, he was also murdered, but still, his ghost did nothing but speak of building a new train line. If I came back as a ghost to give lectures about what I know about guinea pigs, it would also be quite boring for a lot of people. Also, that’s totally what’s going to happen if I have guinea pigs that outlive me. I will be checking on them from beyond the grave, no doubt in my mind. I could tell them about building train lines.

 

During falling snow or me typing about murder, Snuffy and Thorfy are usually napping. Nothing phases them when it comes to weather or murders. Or train lines.

LYLAS

79. The Dead House – Dawn Kurtagich

I had high hopes for this to read quickly and be scary and neither were satisfied, unfortunately. Carly gets to live during the day, Kaitlyn at night, they have a therapist, one of them is an alter of dissociative identity disorder, both of them want to stay, and they’re not doing the best as some sort of other spirit voice is interfering…or is it? This is told through fragments of diaries and therapist notes and described video footage and some other things and in theory that would read quickly, but I kept getting bored. I truly did not expect that. I did expect some dramatic YA realness, but I did not expect to be bored.

I don’t think the whole “what really happened that night” elements were really working very well since I wasn’t remotely intrigued about what really happened to Carly/Kaitlyn’s parents or what happened in the boarding school fire. I wanted the titular dead house to be more of a thing as well, it really resembled the grimy damp basement that Kaitlyn was stuck sitting in for quite a bit. I also didn’t quite get the sisters dynamic of Carly (the peppy one) and Kaitlyn (the dark one) or why it had to be so dramatic when one didn’t leave the other a note when normally these two types of girls would be ignoring each other at school all the time unless they were secretly in love. In this one, the dark one was in love with a demon she didn’t know was a demon and it seemed like Carly had options, but not ones she really was all that interested in.

 

If you ask Peregrine and Ozymandias why they’re not leaving you notes, they will look everywhere but at you because that is not a question for guinea pigs. No it is not.

“And butter our plain bread with delicious pain. So, you do understand a little.”

57. Little Eve – Catriona Ward

This was the kind of gothic story that does feel quite chilly most of the way through. The children of Altnaharra are in a cult that is based around returning to the sea from whence they supposedly came and also the Adder, who sees. “Uncle,” who is clearly no one in the cult’s actual uncle, is creepy as all hell and doesn’t deserve to be in charge of anything at all, let alone children, in that respect he is like all cult leaders. The community of true believing and manipulated all to hell children is quite dark and the goings on of their small community cult seem just as brutal as the weather. If you’ve ever been in a group where you know you are not the leader’s favorite and how being the chosen scapegoat feels, it’s skin crawlingly familiar here.

Anyway, one day the poor dear who delivers their grocery orders with a pony finds seven dead bodies on the island, which is only accessible based around the low tide, and one of the girls known to be living there since she goes to school occasionally is missing and clearly the murderer as stated by Dinah, the one survivor. Evelyn and Dinah and an inspector, who is still investigating long after the case is supposedly closed, are the perspectives we see the events leading up to the murders through and the aftermath as well. It can be a bit merciless at times and I felt sorry quite often for Evelyn and her unfailing belief in the Adder and wanting to inherit its powers.

 

Snuffy only knows what it’s like to be a favorite and also have powers.

The doctor who can’t explain several mystery illnesses calls women “kittle cattle.”

45. Bride of Darkness – Margery Lawrence

Presented as a “the names have been changed to protect the innocent” style expose, a naive antiques dealer, “Keith,” becomes bewitched by an Italian ceramicist while he’s really in love with his step-cousin. “Gilda” is an accomplished ceramicist with a flair for heavy brocade dresses, wild hairdos, and her cat, Satan. She’s a widow when she meets the antiques dealer when he and his father go to Milan on a business trip. He then marries her and finds out dogs hate her – clue. She starts talking in her sleep to “the Master” – also a clue.

His step-cousin Chloris and his aunt (not Chloris’ bio mom) move back to England from Greece with their long time maid, who knows about witches, and Keith and Gilda have a child, Noel, that Gilda clearly does not want… at all. Keith ends up snooping and finds Gilda’s little black diary and her collection of envelopes filled with nail parings and hair. Once Keith was slightly more knowledgeable, I would have thought he might have stolen the clippings and hair from the envelopes so that no more black magic could be worked, but I am not Keith. I have never been an antiques dealer, but I have furtively removed cookies so that they mysteriously diminished in number without it looking like I ate any.

 

Hen Wen knows the witchy red flags, she’s watched a lot of Italian horror. She’s no “Keith the antiques dealer,” is what I’m saying. She’s savvy.

 

 

“We only have mugs here, I hope you approve.”

80. Starve Acre – Andrew Michael Hurley

Richard and Juliette live in an isolated house on the moors and they moved their initially so that their son Ewan could have a nice outdoorsy growing up experience by a small village. But, Ewan dies. And before Ewan dies, it wasn’t working out with the village, even though Richard is from there and they’re living in his parents’ house so Richard can go through all the things his father kept getting weird about like if he reorganizes his books wonky-style, something won’t get to him.

This was a way more enjoyable reading experience for me than The Loney. It’s way more ominous as you go through the snippets of background information and varieties of madness and grief. It’s also shorter and felt more clear in its folk horror elements, although those not being so clear is pretty normal too, but I liked this better, weird ending and all.

 

Horace is slightly behind one of Danger Crumples’ fluffy locks here and he knows better than to root around in the ground for hanging trees. Danger Crumples is lucky to have him around, since with a name like that, he tends to go a-rooting.