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Omens
Omens is a collection of twelve haunting tales by Richard Gavin, whose work is reminiscent of the subtle supernatural tales of Robert Aickman, and also of the eerie and unsettling tales of Thomas Ligotti.
132 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2007
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227 people want to read
About the author
Richard Gavin
85 books176 followersA resident of Ontario, Canada, Richard Gavin is the author of many acclaimed works of horror and the occult, including Charnel Wine, Omens, and Primeval Wood. His non-fiction appears frequently in the pages of Rue Morgue magazine and other journals. Richard’s latest collection, The Darkly Splendid Realm, will be released by Dark Regions Press in autumn 2009.
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December 1, 2018Contents:
Foreword: Gnostic Nightmares, Haunted Dreams
In the Shadow of the Nodding God
The Pale Lover
The Bellman's Way
Down Among the Relics
Daniel
Strange Advances
Mnemonical
& on the Eve of Yule...
What Blooms in Shadow Withers in Light
A Form of Hospice
Beneath the House of Life
Evoking the Horrors
Foreword: Gnostic Nightmares, Haunted Dreams
In the Shadow of the Nodding God
The Pale Lover
The Bellman's Way
Down Among the Relics
Daniel
Strange Advances
Mnemonical
& on the Eve of Yule...
What Blooms in Shadow Withers in Light
A Form of Hospice
Beneath the House of Life
Evoking the Horrors
April 21, 2010
Prior to meeting Richard Gavin at last year's Readercon, I was unfamiliar with his work, but since then I've become something of a devotee.
There were a lot of great stories in Omens, with "What Blooms in Shadow Withers in Light," "A Form of Hospice," and "Beneath the House of Life" all being among my favorites. As lots of other people have already said, Gavin writes genuinely weird supernatural stories that evoke the best of writers like Machen, Blackwood, Campbell, and Ligotti, among others, and that's something we can't have too much of these days.
That said, Omens felt a little slight to me, for lack of a better word. Not because it was short, necessarily, but because a lot of the stories seemed somewhat insubstantial compared to others I'd read by Gavin. Fortunately, that shortcoming is handily rectified in his next collection, The Darkly Splendid Realm, which I am only a few short stories away from finishing.
There were a lot of great stories in Omens, with "What Blooms in Shadow Withers in Light," "A Form of Hospice," and "Beneath the House of Life" all being among my favorites. As lots of other people have already said, Gavin writes genuinely weird supernatural stories that evoke the best of writers like Machen, Blackwood, Campbell, and Ligotti, among others, and that's something we can't have too much of these days.
That said, Omens felt a little slight to me, for lack of a better word. Not because it was short, necessarily, but because a lot of the stories seemed somewhat insubstantial compared to others I'd read by Gavin. Fortunately, that shortcoming is handily rectified in his next collection, The Darkly Splendid Realm, which I am only a few short stories away from finishing.
January 31, 2019
4.5 rounded up . Omens is a dark moody lyrical anthology with a large dose of Lovecraft thrown in . I really enjoyed this . It's a heavy read which explains why I am reading Elvira Transylvania 90210 now .
August 31, 2011
I'd read a couple of the stories Richard Gavin provides for free reading on his website and was taken with the intricate, deeply unsettling drift of Gavin's take on the weird. So now I'm working my way through this, his second collection of short fiction. I'll update this review with comments on each story as I read it.
In The Shadow Of The Nodding God: A reclusive man begins creating a series of strange scrapbooks filled with collages assembled from reports on dark, esoteric matters and old photographs. There's some amazing imagined art that works very well visually if you picture it in your mind's eye and a truly creepy encounter with an eldritch entity. The ending was perhaps just a little flat.
The Pale Lover: This one is pure gold, even if it shared a couple of plot elements with the previous story (the climax in an abandoned old building where the protagonist loses consciousness after a weird encounter). Gavin has created such a great concept here and given the succubi of old such a fitting new vector for their monstrous caresses that I almost fear this tale simply has to come true.
The Bellman's Way: A plunge into the unknown ends badly for an artist and his family when they move to a rural residence. There is so much telling imagery in this story, Gavin knows exactly what he is doing with each image, metaphor and passing reference that he builds into his narrative. Also a story with creepy verses that actually work as creepiness and verse.
Down Among The Relics: Are Gavin's stories grouped in pairs? This one again shares elements with its predecessor, but is not really a retread. Great pacing, great imagery. I didn't feel this was as original as the previous stories, but I have to admire Gavin's prose style - it has a little of Ligotti's otherworldly verve and menace but with a dark beauty of its own.
Daniel: My least favourite story. Much of it could be interpreted in terms of mundane psychopathology, although Gavin makes a spirited attempt to give this particular pathology a less prosaic vector and builds to a suitably weird climax. A matter of personal taste, I guess.
Strange Advances: This story is a masterpiece. Obviously the Venetian setting, which filled my mind with atmosphere from Henry James' 'The Aspern Papers' and Nicolas Roeg's brilliant supernatural film, 'Don't Look Now' helped. But even without that edge, this darkly romantic, psychically searing tale of a heartbroken man's encounter with - something female, ancient (and possibly wise, but not kind) in a dreary, off-season Venice may well be the finest moment in this collection yet.
Mnemonical: A brooding, haunting prose-poem that works very well.
& On The Eve Of Yule...: This story briefly evokes something of the atmosphere of Ray Bradbury's Elliott family stories before twisting the scenario around into a truly cosmic cataclysm. Very chilling and effective. I wish I'd written this one.
What Bloom In Shadow Withers In Light: This one was first written for a Halloween-themed anthology and I have to give Gavin credit for creating a series of macabre set-pieces with a cosmic pay-off.
A Form Of Hospice: Oh, this was chilling. Gavin certainly thinks up some very striking and original vectors for the dark numinous.
Beneath The House Of Life: There's something exquisitely dark and twisted about the unwittingly Kaballistic children's book Gavin conjures up in this wonderfully paced tale of an elderly couple inexorably converging on a path to forbidden knowledge. Chilling visions of a dark universe hidden beside our own.
Evoking The Horrors: This one was, I think, meant to have pulled the rug out from under my feet, reminding me that real life is populated with sufficient monsters to feed a lifetime's nightmares. But I'm not sure it was a reminder that I required, given that I do occasionally read the news.
In The Shadow Of The Nodding God: A reclusive man begins creating a series of strange scrapbooks filled with collages assembled from reports on dark, esoteric matters and old photographs. There's some amazing imagined art that works very well visually if you picture it in your mind's eye and a truly creepy encounter with an eldritch entity. The ending was perhaps just a little flat.
The Pale Lover: This one is pure gold, even if it shared a couple of plot elements with the previous story (the climax in an abandoned old building where the protagonist loses consciousness after a weird encounter). Gavin has created such a great concept here and given the succubi of old such a fitting new vector for their monstrous caresses that I almost fear this tale simply has to come true.
The Bellman's Way: A plunge into the unknown ends badly for an artist and his family when they move to a rural residence. There is so much telling imagery in this story, Gavin knows exactly what he is doing with each image, metaphor and passing reference that he builds into his narrative. Also a story with creepy verses that actually work as creepiness and verse.
Down Among The Relics: Are Gavin's stories grouped in pairs? This one again shares elements with its predecessor, but is not really a retread. Great pacing, great imagery. I didn't feel this was as original as the previous stories, but I have to admire Gavin's prose style - it has a little of Ligotti's otherworldly verve and menace but with a dark beauty of its own.
Daniel: My least favourite story. Much of it could be interpreted in terms of mundane psychopathology, although Gavin makes a spirited attempt to give this particular pathology a less prosaic vector and builds to a suitably weird climax. A matter of personal taste, I guess.
Strange Advances: This story is a masterpiece. Obviously the Venetian setting, which filled my mind with atmosphere from Henry James' 'The Aspern Papers' and Nicolas Roeg's brilliant supernatural film, 'Don't Look Now' helped. But even without that edge, this darkly romantic, psychically searing tale of a heartbroken man's encounter with - something female, ancient (and possibly wise, but not kind) in a dreary, off-season Venice may well be the finest moment in this collection yet.
Mnemonical: A brooding, haunting prose-poem that works very well.
& On The Eve Of Yule...: This story briefly evokes something of the atmosphere of Ray Bradbury's Elliott family stories before twisting the scenario around into a truly cosmic cataclysm. Very chilling and effective. I wish I'd written this one.
What Bloom In Shadow Withers In Light: This one was first written for a Halloween-themed anthology and I have to give Gavin credit for creating a series of macabre set-pieces with a cosmic pay-off.
A Form Of Hospice: Oh, this was chilling. Gavin certainly thinks up some very striking and original vectors for the dark numinous.
Beneath The House Of Life: There's something exquisitely dark and twisted about the unwittingly Kaballistic children's book Gavin conjures up in this wonderfully paced tale of an elderly couple inexorably converging on a path to forbidden knowledge. Chilling visions of a dark universe hidden beside our own.
Evoking The Horrors: This one was, I think, meant to have pulled the rug out from under my feet, reminding me that real life is populated with sufficient monsters to feed a lifetime's nightmares. But I'm not sure it was a reminder that I required, given that I do occasionally read the news.
February 28, 2010
Unlike many of his peers, Richard Gavin has managed to tell a group of stories here that espouse a single Weltanschauung, yet remain varied enough to maintain the reader's interest. His prose is a baroque style reminiscent Ligotti by way of Poe and Kafka, which lends it an air of something slightly foreign — his characters feel more at home on the uneven stone streets of old Europe than the concrete sidewalks of Canada.
September 25, 2018
I’ve read quite a bit of Richard’s work and he never fails to impress me with his masterful skill, this collection is another one of his books that I’ll definitely be returning to again and again.
The stories are varied but share an oppressive dread - It feels like I’d stumbled upon old and forbidden texts concealing occultic depths and mysteries. His stories elicit such an unease that few other writers can achieve it makes we want to go back and read all his other books again.
I’d highly recommend this... along with any other books by Richard Gavin!
The stories are varied but share an oppressive dread - It feels like I’d stumbled upon old and forbidden texts concealing occultic depths and mysteries. His stories elicit such an unease that few other writers can achieve it makes we want to go back and read all his other books again.
I’d highly recommend this... along with any other books by Richard Gavin!
November 10, 2014
Richard Gavin (along with Simon Strantzas) is a great contemporary Canadian literary horror writer. You can see the influence of writers like Aickman, Ligotti and Barron, but he also has his own voice. Now someone hook me up with reasonably-priced copies of "Charnel Wine" and "The Darkly Splendid Realm."
October 5, 2014
Thus far I've read the third and fourth short fiction collection of Richard Gavin. This was his second collection. At least to my mind, Richard Gavin is at the forefront of writers of the weird tale.
Most of these stories are supernatural/occult horror, influenced by the masters in the genre.
For example, "In the Shadow of the Nodding God" is something that Ligotti might have written. A man creates a strange scrapbook assembled from on old photographs and reports on dark subjects. This hobby causes an encounter with supernatural beings.
"The Bellman's Way" reminds me of 19th Century American horror tales. An artist and his family move to a rural residence. The artist is menaced by a being who is called, from local legend, The Bellman. The Bellman leaves poems like this:
Remember the clocks,
Look well to your locks,
Fire and your light,
And God give you good night.
For you the bell ringeth darkly
"Strange Advances" The story takes place in Venice, and there is love and death. Beyond that, I'm not sure. The story is dedicated "to the memory of Robert Acikman." Sometimes I'm not sure about Robert Aickman's stories too.
"What Blooms In Shadow Withers In Light" I get a Matheson/Bradbury/King vibe here. The conflict in this story is between a woman has has imprisoned evil supernatural beings, and an occultist who seeks to release them.
A couple of other good stories in this book. One story, "& On The Eve of Yule.." can be read of the author's website:
http://www.richardgavin.net/2007/12/o...
Most of these stories are supernatural/occult horror, influenced by the masters in the genre.
For example, "In the Shadow of the Nodding God" is something that Ligotti might have written. A man creates a strange scrapbook assembled from on old photographs and reports on dark subjects. This hobby causes an encounter with supernatural beings.
"The Bellman's Way" reminds me of 19th Century American horror tales. An artist and his family move to a rural residence. The artist is menaced by a being who is called, from local legend, The Bellman. The Bellman leaves poems like this:
Remember the clocks,
Look well to your locks,
Fire and your light,
And God give you good night.
For you the bell ringeth darkly
"Strange Advances" The story takes place in Venice, and there is love and death. Beyond that, I'm not sure. The story is dedicated "to the memory of Robert Acikman." Sometimes I'm not sure about Robert Aickman's stories too.
"What Blooms In Shadow Withers In Light" I get a Matheson/Bradbury/King vibe here. The conflict in this story is between a woman has has imprisoned evil supernatural beings, and an occultist who seeks to release them.
A couple of other good stories in this book. One story, "& On The Eve of Yule.." can be read of the author's website:
http://www.richardgavin.net/2007/12/o...
February 2, 2018
I enjoyed this book very much. However, having read Richard Gavin's later collections - At Fear's Altar and Sylan Dread - I found that some of these stories, although still great, did not reach the same level of excellence that I have come to expect from him, which is perfectly understandable given that this was only his second collection.
The highlights for me were The Pale Lover, The Bellman's Way, Down Among the Relics, Strange Advances, & on thr Eve of Yule, Beneath the House of Life and Evoking the Horrors.
The highlights for me were The Pale Lover, The Bellman's Way, Down Among the Relics, Strange Advances, & on thr Eve of Yule, Beneath the House of Life and Evoking the Horrors.
September 13, 2021
An interesting read after having thoroughly enjoyed Grotesquerie, as this is clearly the work of a younger and less certain writer. Still, the stories are generally strong, and Gavin's imagination is exciting and inspiring. A Form Of Hospice, The Bellman's Way, and In the Shadow of the Nodding God were all fantastic, and I'm glad Gavin seems to have outgrown pieces like Evoking the Horrors.
April 19, 2017
An exquisite collection of horror and nightmarish fantasies. Gavin is gifted at twining myth and superstition into his tales, where urban legends, holy terrors, otherworldly horrors, and Halloween-masked devils frolic at the periphery of our vision. He accomplishes this with both style and restraint in perfect proportion. These are like Lovecraftian tales of outer darkness, but told in crisp and restrained prose of Robert Aickman, that chilling sense of quiet horror suffusing stories where the eldritch monstrosities are ever hinted at, but never awkwardly placed on full display to be gawked or laughed at. A highly recommended collection.
January 11, 2021
This book is a Gavinostic Nightmare. One that works.
And I have evidence: I had a Gavinostic Nightmare for real the other night. I knew I was in a dream although I was in my own bungalow-house in UK getting up to relieve myself as I often do – but halfway down the stairs I knew this was a nightmare and I don’t know why but it was one I was truly living and all I needed was some proof that I was awake as well as dreaming (somehow and in some sort of sense). There was a grill-like thing, a square of criss-cross wire, on the inside of the front door at the foot of the stairs. This must be a dream. It had never been there before. I knew if I touched it, it would dissolve… I touch it. It was hard. I could move it. I could truly feel it, almost with an electric shock. But before I could investigate further I woke in my bed upstairs, next to my sleeping wife. My fingers could still feel the wire they had touched. I went down to relieve myself ‘again’. Of course, the grill-like thing was not there. I am sure I would never had this quite amazing yet highly disturbing experience without reading OMENS.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
And I have evidence: I had a Gavinostic Nightmare for real the other night. I knew I was in a dream although I was in my own bungalow-house in UK getting up to relieve myself as I often do – but halfway down the stairs I knew this was a nightmare and I don’t know why but it was one I was truly living and all I needed was some proof that I was awake as well as dreaming (somehow and in some sort of sense). There was a grill-like thing, a square of criss-cross wire, on the inside of the front door at the foot of the stairs. This must be a dream. It had never been there before. I knew if I touched it, it would dissolve… I touch it. It was hard. I could move it. I could truly feel it, almost with an electric shock. But before I could investigate further I woke in my bed upstairs, next to my sleeping wife. My fingers could still feel the wire they had touched. I went down to relieve myself ‘again’. Of course, the grill-like thing was not there. I am sure I would never had this quite amazing yet highly disturbing experience without reading OMENS.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
October 18, 2019
Favorites:
Down Among the Relics
The Pale Lover
The Bellman’s Way
Down Among the Relics
The Pale Lover
The Bellman’s Way
February 16, 2016
This collection by Richard Gavin is the second one I read by him, the previous being "At Fears Altar" which I enjoyed immensely. "Omens" begins with an introduction by the author explaining "Gnostic Nightmares" and his thoughts on the subject. The book then proceeds into its stories which easily fall into this category he has given us. "Omens" did not disappoint me one bit. The sense of atmosphere really stood out to me. These stories would get chilling enough where I would almost physically feel cold when reading some of them, which does not happen to me very much. I love the twists and turns they took me on and the unique territories explored. I really loved the story "House of Life" which is the first horror story I have read that delves into the Qabbalistic (choose your spelling) tree of life. The only thing Im bummed out now is it seems Mr. Gavin's earlier works are a bit hard to come by right now, hopefully that changes in the future. I also cannot wait to read his future tales!
November 21, 2014
Couldn't put it down. Exciting, and thrilling… husband mad because I was reading so much!
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