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Scream Quietly: The Best of Charles L. Grant
cream Quietly: The Best of Charles L. Grant brings together more than thirty atmospheric and often poignant stories and novellas by one of the most talented genre writers of his generation. Selected by his friend and colleague Stephen Jones, these tales of science fiction, fantasy and the author s unique style of quiet horror which he cultivated in his many novels, collections and anthologies showcase some of the finest work published by Grant during his nearly forty-year career as a writer. This career-spanning collection also includes personal commentaries by Stephen King, Kim Newman, Peter Straub, Thomas F. Monteleone and Nancy Holder, plus an interview with the author by Nancy Kilpatrick. So be prepared to be terrified. But if you must scream, then just make sure that you scream . . . quietly!
- GenresHorrorShort Stories
523 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2011
18 people are currently reading
187 people want to read
About the author
Charles L. Grant
309 books264 followersCharles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 10, 2020
“Scream Quietly: The Best of Charles L. Grant” collects Grant’s finest short stories of “quiet horror,” and as such it’s nigh-on indispensable to the serious fan of dark fiction. Grant should be much better remembered than he is, as evidenced by any number of classic tales within this huge (450-page) gathering: “White Wolf Calling,” “Quietly Now,” “Pride,” “Penny Daye,” “The Last and Dreadful Hour,” “Riding the Black,” “The Soft Sound of Wings”...these are wonderful stories by any possible standard.
That said, it’s possible to have a few reservations about this volume. As with most giant career-retrospective collections, it’s too long; at least a half-dozen of the 30+ stories here are slight pieces, and could easily have been cut. The appreciations of Grant by other writers, while heartfelt, add little to the book other than some famous names (King, Straub) to the Table of Contents. Finally, PS Publishing’s decision to use British spellings (“kerb,” “tyres”) throughout the volume leads to a certain cognitive dissonance when reading of American characters in American settings rendered by Charles L. Grant, who in his way was as American a writer as Ernest Hemingway or Ray Bradbury. PS is a British publisher, of course, but surely when reprinting the finest work of a master like Grant his original spellings and usages should be retained.
Still, despite a few quibbles, this collection stands as the definitive edition of Charles L. Grant’s short fiction.
That said, it’s possible to have a few reservations about this volume. As with most giant career-retrospective collections, it’s too long; at least a half-dozen of the 30+ stories here are slight pieces, and could easily have been cut. The appreciations of Grant by other writers, while heartfelt, add little to the book other than some famous names (King, Straub) to the Table of Contents. Finally, PS Publishing’s decision to use British spellings (“kerb,” “tyres”) throughout the volume leads to a certain cognitive dissonance when reading of American characters in American settings rendered by Charles L. Grant, who in his way was as American a writer as Ernest Hemingway or Ray Bradbury. PS is a British publisher, of course, but surely when reprinting the finest work of a master like Grant his original spellings and usages should be retained.
Still, despite a few quibbles, this collection stands as the definitive edition of Charles L. Grant’s short fiction.
February 27, 2017
Charles L. Grant wrote about the living dead - not zombies (there's only one carrion gut-muncher in the collection) - but people who are living in the constant suffering after the loss of a loved one, or of a hopeful, bright future shortchanged by tragedy and darkness. Here in this mammoth collection, 'Scream Quietly', there are many stories of a woman or a man alone in a house, the ghosts of time and memory congealing with a slow dread as our protagonist realizes that their husband, or wife, or child is still watching them, more than likely, not the same as they were before they were lowered into that damp rectangle of earth. Grant is the Poe of the suburbs, a soft-spoken purveyor of the Grand Guignol, a sentimentalist with a heavy heart and a penchant for the atmosphere, particularly that of a storm in autumn. And if there is a particular 'star' suburb of his, it is Oxrun Station. Everybody suffers in Oxrun Station - toll booths lead stray travelers into a void between life and death; at midnight, little children congregate at the playground, giggling in the dark; widows look out the kitchen window and watch their sallow reflections against the black, teeming night. There are moments of outright horror from time to time, but it is the suggestion, the 'quiet' horror of Grant's ouvre, that make his work so memorable. Most of the stories excel within the confines of the standard horror story, but there are some in the bunch that fall flat, a reliance on the same atmospherics (leaves claw the pavement one too many times), or a too-soft touch making the horror not necessarily 'quiet' but muted and dull. Still, any serious horror literature fan needs to own this collection (even though the copy editor of the book allowed a fair share of spelling errors).
Some of the tales that stung me deeply:
'Through All His Blood Runs Shadow' - NYC as a concrete crypt, socialites beckon the midnight hour, and a wrong turn for one leads to an encounter with a serial killer, or is it a demigod made of garbage? Great early work.
'The Children Know My Name' - stellar. An ex-cop works neighborhood security after several teenagers were found mutilated in a park. The suburbs are surreal - a great ode to 'Village of the Damned'. Makes you wonder what happens at playgrounds after they lock the gates.
'Garden of Blackred Roses' - Grant does wonders with this ode to Bradbury. People who take a red rose from the neighbor's garden will have their lives changed. Some thrive with good luck, others not so much. A fog at the windows, a lone candle burning on the mantle - this one has some great images and a slow-burning dread. Grant's terse yet eloquent prose is on full power here.
'Quietly Now' - "The darkmoon was legend, a Halloween tale, but it didn't change the fact that people sometimes died. He thought it would have been sufficient for them to see one two-column photo of a spring-thaw corpse huddled in a small cave, of a partially devoured woman huddled beneath a tree, or a fleshless family unprotected in their tents, sleeping bags slashed and clothes rent at the seams."
'Coin of Realm' - Stark metaphor of people suffering through the 'recession' of the 1970s, during an oil crisis, no less. They're given a chance to go to another place, one beyond the midnight tolls, a safe, sacred place? Our protagonist works the booths and keeps receiving Egyptian coins from drivers. He decides to follow their trail.
'Something There Is' - at some point, every horror writer needs to write about writing horror stories. This one is fun, full of genre references, and it shows a rare sense of humor that is not read in most Oxrun tales.
'Are you Afraid of the Dark' - playing hide and seek in an old house. A tangible EC Comics feel to this one.
'Spinning Tales with the Dead' - perhaps the best written work in the whole collection. I remember this one from Douglas Winter's 'Prime Evil'. It has lost none of its language. Here, Grant's descriptive powers are at their strongest, the dialogue unique and earnest, the colors of light exquisite, and the ending so masterfully vague; of course, with a blue tender heart and a horrid suggestion. Great stuff.
'Riding the Black' - equal parts western and apocalypse tale. A strange wandering outlaw has to leave the town, but not before paying visit to the preacher. What makes this one unique is it's set a few years after Hiroshima, and Grant details the old West losing its anonymity as power lines get hauled up on horizon.
Some of the tales that stung me deeply:
'Through All His Blood Runs Shadow' - NYC as a concrete crypt, socialites beckon the midnight hour, and a wrong turn for one leads to an encounter with a serial killer, or is it a demigod made of garbage? Great early work.
'The Children Know My Name' - stellar. An ex-cop works neighborhood security after several teenagers were found mutilated in a park. The suburbs are surreal - a great ode to 'Village of the Damned'. Makes you wonder what happens at playgrounds after they lock the gates.
'Garden of Blackred Roses' - Grant does wonders with this ode to Bradbury. People who take a red rose from the neighbor's garden will have their lives changed. Some thrive with good luck, others not so much. A fog at the windows, a lone candle burning on the mantle - this one has some great images and a slow-burning dread. Grant's terse yet eloquent prose is on full power here.
'Quietly Now' - "The darkmoon was legend, a Halloween tale, but it didn't change the fact that people sometimes died. He thought it would have been sufficient for them to see one two-column photo of a spring-thaw corpse huddled in a small cave, of a partially devoured woman huddled beneath a tree, or a fleshless family unprotected in their tents, sleeping bags slashed and clothes rent at the seams."
'Coin of Realm' - Stark metaphor of people suffering through the 'recession' of the 1970s, during an oil crisis, no less. They're given a chance to go to another place, one beyond the midnight tolls, a safe, sacred place? Our protagonist works the booths and keeps receiving Egyptian coins from drivers. He decides to follow their trail.
'Something There Is' - at some point, every horror writer needs to write about writing horror stories. This one is fun, full of genre references, and it shows a rare sense of humor that is not read in most Oxrun tales.
'Are you Afraid of the Dark' - playing hide and seek in an old house. A tangible EC Comics feel to this one.
'Spinning Tales with the Dead' - perhaps the best written work in the whole collection. I remember this one from Douglas Winter's 'Prime Evil'. It has lost none of its language. Here, Grant's descriptive powers are at their strongest, the dialogue unique and earnest, the colors of light exquisite, and the ending so masterfully vague; of course, with a blue tender heart and a horrid suggestion. Great stuff.
'Riding the Black' - equal parts western and apocalypse tale. A strange wandering outlaw has to leave the town, but not before paying visit to the preacher. What makes this one unique is it's set a few years after Hiroshima, and Grant details the old West losing its anonymity as power lines get hauled up on horizon.
July 30, 2017
While this book is a mostly worthy testimony and tribute to Charles L. Grant and his pioneering work in the quiet horror niche, I, like other reviewers, have found a few shortcomings here in the editor's choices. Among these inadequacies, I found the choice to include sentimental appreciations and reminiscences, rather than more of Grant's vast amount of uncollected stories, to be most notable. Yes, it's good to see prominent authors of the horror community share their appreciation for the man and his work, but this seems relatively unimportant given the fact that so many CLG stories remain exclusively confined to rare anthologies and magazines. What's more, the decision to include perhaps too many stories from collections--Black Wine and Tales from the Nightside, in particular--still available and affordable does somewhat relegate this book to less than what it could have been; a best-of selection of Grant's truly rare works.
However, enough previously uncollected material has been gathered in this book to justify its publication. Among these relatively rare pieces, "Through All His Blood Runs Shadow", "Quietly Now" and "Crystal" seem to have most deserved rescue from obscurity; each of these stories resuscitates the often all-too-anemic vampire trope by focusing more on the psychic variant of this tradition, perhaps most brilliantly achieved in "Crystal" by its use of a mirror instilled with sympathetic magic and the titular character's desperate, Bathoryesque desire.
"Through All His Blood Runs Shadow" begins with the idea of accident-spectatorship as a kind of depraved spiritual vampirism, but, as if Grant had known this premise seemed too similar to Bradbury's "The Crowd", the narrative shifts into a much more darkly surreal vision of the cityscape and ends with a back-alley scene which very well could be the most hallucinatory passage ever featured in a CLG story.
"Quietly Now", while not as inventive as the other two stories mentioned, nevertheless is an excellent example of how to properly balance both the erotic and macabre aspects of the vampire and, therefore, create effective horror that is equally seductive and unsettling. To consider that these three stories were published throughout the seventies and eighties yet still are more compelling than the great majority of contemporary vampire fiction should be sufficient evidence of Grant's mastery.
While I have complained about the largely disposable nature of this book's nonfictional content, the section of photos are probably far more valuable than the secondary texts; particularly, the photos of Grant scanning manuscripts while confined to a hospital bed display the uncommon devotion of the man to his work better than any retrospective essay ever could. And looking over these truly poignant images makes it all the more clear that a definitive volume of Grant's collected stories would be not only greatly desired by his continuing readership, but also more than justified by the legacy of an author who envisioned and mastered his own subtly elegant vision of horror fiction.
However, enough previously uncollected material has been gathered in this book to justify its publication. Among these relatively rare pieces, "Through All His Blood Runs Shadow", "Quietly Now" and "Crystal" seem to have most deserved rescue from obscurity; each of these stories resuscitates the often all-too-anemic vampire trope by focusing more on the psychic variant of this tradition, perhaps most brilliantly achieved in "Crystal" by its use of a mirror instilled with sympathetic magic and the titular character's desperate, Bathoryesque desire.
"Through All His Blood Runs Shadow" begins with the idea of accident-spectatorship as a kind of depraved spiritual vampirism, but, as if Grant had known this premise seemed too similar to Bradbury's "The Crowd", the narrative shifts into a much more darkly surreal vision of the cityscape and ends with a back-alley scene which very well could be the most hallucinatory passage ever featured in a CLG story.
"Quietly Now", while not as inventive as the other two stories mentioned, nevertheless is an excellent example of how to properly balance both the erotic and macabre aspects of the vampire and, therefore, create effective horror that is equally seductive and unsettling. To consider that these three stories were published throughout the seventies and eighties yet still are more compelling than the great majority of contemporary vampire fiction should be sufficient evidence of Grant's mastery.
While I have complained about the largely disposable nature of this book's nonfictional content, the section of photos are probably far more valuable than the secondary texts; particularly, the photos of Grant scanning manuscripts while confined to a hospital bed display the uncommon devotion of the man to his work better than any retrospective essay ever could. And looking over these truly poignant images makes it all the more clear that a definitive volume of Grant's collected stories would be not only greatly desired by his continuing readership, but also more than justified by the legacy of an author who envisioned and mastered his own subtly elegant vision of horror fiction.
March 11, 2019
Charles L Grant, the quintessential short story writer for gothic psychological horror and thriller. I was so pleased to come across this book. It's striking in appearance and the complexity of his short stories made this a pleasure to read. If you enjoy reading gothic stories, this is the book for you.
August 9, 2020
Really long. Maybe some stories I have to re-read.
July 13, 2024
For fans of quiet horror for which I'm one. A good selection of tales I really enjoyed.
July 8, 2024
In looking at individual stories below, I have mostly dispensed with summaries. Instead, I have tried to use systematic #keywords and an enticing quote. The "Cf." reading suggestions are not meant as 1:1 matches for plot; they are my readerly free-associations. Your free-association mileage will vary.
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This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 19, 2017
Glad
When I found this book was an eBook . I was really glad/pleased. I had read quite a bit of Grant's work. The original edition was a bit out of my budget. However I really did want to read it. It was simply one of those books I would read one day. It was worth the wait some really excellent stories and some very move tributes from other authors and professionals.
When I found this book was an eBook . I was really glad/pleased. I had read quite a bit of Grant's work. The original edition was a bit out of my budget. However I really did want to read it. It was simply one of those books I would read one day. It was worth the wait some really excellent stories and some very move tributes from other authors and professionals.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews