Jason V. Brock.
The Devil’s Coattails: More Dispatches from the Dark Frontier (Cycatrix Press), edited by Jason V. Brock and William F. Nolan, available in a limited-edition (52) deluxe hardcover version, signed and lettered editions and in 500 trade hardcovers is a treat on so many levels.
There are the stories, of course, from the likes of William F. Nolan, Melanie Tem, Jerry E. Airth, J. Brundage, James Robert Smith, Norman Corwin, Steve Rasnic Tem, Richard Christian Matheson, Earl Hamner, Jr., Sunni K. Brock, Nancy Kilpatrick, Paul J. Salamoff, Marc Scott Zicree, W.H. Pugmire and Maryanne K. Snyder, Richard Selzer, Gary A. Braunbeck, and Paul G. Bens, Jr. But there are also at least thirty fascinating illustrations to accompany the stories (not counting the headshots of the authors’ themselves).
Joe Hill.
With a Foreword by S.T. Joshi and a cover by award-winning artist Vincent Chong of the U.K., whose work has been used by authors such as Ray Bradbury, Stephen King and Joe Hill, this short story collection has a little something for everyone, beginning with Ramsey Campbell’s story “The Moons.” [One nice touch in the anthology is the paragraph that accompanies each story, so that we learn what inspired it, from the author’s point-of-view.]
Campbell, often referred to as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer,” tells us that he and his wife Jenny had gone to a nature reserve at Freshfield near Liverpool for a Sunday walk when the ranger at the gate mentioned that several youngsters were missing somewhere in the area. This inspired Ramsey to write a most intriguing story focusing on exactly that topic, but with the sinister Edgar Allan Poe-like mounting horror that readers have come to expect from this President of the British Fantasy Society and Society of Fantastic Films.
Jason V. Brock follows Campbell’s story with his own, “Object Lesson, “ which, for me, was one of the most powerful in the collection. Jason and I shared space within the anthology Butcher Knives & Body Counts, edited by Vince Liaguno, and we share a memory of the loss of a loved one, in this case, our fathers. The story is very touching. Jason relates that he wrote the first draft when only twelve. It took me immediately back to my father’s hospital room at the Mayo Clinic over Labor Day, when the oncologist told me to “take him home and make him comfortable,” as my father was days from dying from terminal liver cancer. A multi-talented writer, illustrator, filmmaker and musician, Jason’s wife, Sunni Brock, also shares a story with us in this anthology, one entitled “Dying to Forget.”
Dan O’Bannon’s “Invocation” is adapted from some of the now-deceased writer’s older works, found in boxes by Jason, Sunni and the author’s widow. Diane O’Bannon says, “The Brocks and I enjoyed reading it, and we hope you will, too.” Considering that O’Bannon was the screenwriter behind “Alien” and “Total Recall,” among others, this short piece stands as tribute to the man who passed away in late 2009.
John Shirley’s contribution, “Gunboat Whores,” has Wyatt Earp on a boat with ladies of the evening. Shirley shares that this is part of a novel and the product of a good deal of research that showed that young Wyatt Earp did, indeed, work on a gunboat similar to the one in the story.
William F. Nolan & Connie Wilson.
Follow Shirley’s story with William F. Nolan’s poetic turn on “Dread Voyage,” inspired by the epic “Aeneid.” Nolan is well known for all forms of fiction, including receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers’ Association in 2010. If you studied the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” as I did while a literature major at the University of Iowa, you’ll like this one, delving into Greek mythology and portraying Circe, daughter of the Sun who lived on the isle of Aeaea.
Original artwork from "The Devil's Coattails."
After Bill Nolan’s epic poem came one of my favorite stories in the entire anthology, “Best Friends.” Written by Melanie Tem. “Best Friends” is a ghost story…or is it? This short story deals with the undeniable pain that the loss of a long-time friend leaves. Not loss through death; loss while still living. “After all those years and all that work, I’d finally come to terms with the impossible and the outrageous and the unbearable and the then bone-deep truth that Michelle wasn’t my friend any more. My life had finally settled into its new architecture without her, the way a body can sometimes but not always do after terrible surgery. It only hurt when I pressed it, or breathed too deeply. Now, here she is again, and everything hurts.” Melanie nails this emotion so well, so tellingly. She describes “the long slow death of our friendship’ and its demise, saying, “I disciplined myself not to wish her ill.” When Melanie shares the fact that, “I used to torture myself by wondering if Michelle was keeping up with my life, too,” you nod your head in agreement if you’ve ever lost a friend to time, not death. When she says she is “determined not to let her interfere with my life again,” the reader applauds the author’s determination. But we know that, even more than the loss of her husband (because she shares this thought), the loss of a close female friend of many years can be even worse. At some point, this story of a friend who betrays you, a friend lost, a woman grieving for her lost female friend, becomes a ghost story. When it does, you will marvel at how well Melanie Tem has captured the inevitable pain that accompanies the loss of a decades-long friendship and has taken that pain to another level here. Bravo!
Jerry E. Airth, in “Night Food” makes you never want to encounter mosquitoes again. That may seem like short shrift, but you need to read this story, so I don’t have to think about it again (she said, shivering).
J. Brundage’s “Too Good to Be Human,” she shares, was originally written for a sophomore-level Creative Writing class. The story is part sci-fi, part horror and all weird. Even the author says, “Some of my classmates didn’t quite know what to make of such an odd story.” It’s definitely original! I loved it.
James Robert Smith’s “On the First Day,” following on the heels of the Brundage piece, ups the weird ante. But isn’t that we came for? Isn’t that what we want? Seven days trapped inside, waiting for…what? It’s not surprising that James Robert Smith’s novel “The Flock” was optioned by Don (“Transformers”) Murphy and John (“West Wing”) Wells via Warner Brothers. It’s that spooky. Smith calls it “a paranoid fantasy.” I call it riveting.
Norman Corwin follows with “Barrels Ready,” a short story that this 101-year-old author related as “a fond reminiscence of an event in my early days as a reporter.” Mr. Corwin passed away in October, 2011, but he worked productively till the end of his life and was nominated for an Oscar for his adaptation of “Lust for Life.”
Steve Rasnic Tem’s “Cattiwampus” is a piece filled with down-home dialogue. A past recipient of a Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, British Fantasy and World Fantasy Awards, he relates a story descended from an old Appalachian folk tale. (I related more to Melanie’s story of a lost female friendship, but there’s much to like here, too.)
Original Artwork: "The Devil's Coattails."
Richard Christian Matheson gives us perhaps the shortest piece, “Interrogation.” This piece proves that the element of surprise is not just useful for humor. A surprising reversal of expectations works in horror, as well. Matheson spans so many genres (novel, short stories, screenplays, musician) that this quirky piece is not unusual for a writer who has been a drummer for over thirty years and who also has worked with the UCLA Parapsychology Labs, investigating haunted houses and paranormal phenomenon.
“The Woods Colt” by Earl Hamner, Jr., explores the age-old longing of a boy for the approval and love of his father. “Nothing he had ever accomplished had been enough to earn his father’s approval…’Why does no one love me?’ he would ask himself. He reasoned that there was something wrong with him, that maybe he was not deserving of love, and so he remained distant from friends, an outsider, an alien.” Inspired by a house in disrepair, Earl Hamner, creator of “The Waltons,” reworks the age-old father-son dynamic to good effect here.
“Invisible” by Nancy Kilpatrick uses her experience(s) as a waitress in “Invisible.” Ghosts also abound in this story, but the waitress motif co-exists beautifully with the ghost theme.
Paul J. Salamoff follows Kilpatrick with a poem entitled “Can You Imagine…” It’s dedicated to the author’s children and muses about all the changes we’ve seen in technology since his children, Samantha and Ethan, were born. “The past was quite different, a bit out of sync, and from time to time you might pause to think.”
The works of Rod Serling inspired Rod Serling’s “After Twilight” by Marc Scott Zicree. It is a screenplay, dated “Spring, 2007.” (“Knife Through the Veil”) Playing around with the idea of Serling as a main character in something he called “Twilight Man,” he thought of combining the world of “Mad Men” with Serling’s world. A student of Serling’s who researched with off-the-record tape recordings Serling made when he taught at Sherwood Oaks College in California, there is much explanation of why “Knife Through the Veil” never made it to your television screens. And it’s a pity it didn’t.
“The Hidden Realm” by W.H. Pugmire & Maryanne K. Snyder write stories together and this one is a beauty. It is entirely apropos that their first published tale was the lead story in an issue of “Weird Tales” (“The House of Idiot Children”) and that their third will be published in S. T. Joshi’s “Weird Fiction Review.”
“Crimean Vespers” by Richard Selzer is set in 1895. It features a rather lengthy epilogue that describes his affection for Anton Chekhov and how Selzer, a surgeon and writer from Troy, New York, makes use of information from his medical career to flesh out his stories (no pun intended.) Selzer wanted to try to cement his spiritual kinship with Chekhov in writing “Crimean Vespers.” The story reminded me of classic Poe or Nathaniel Hawthorne, but Chekhov it is, because the author told me so.
Original artwork: "The Devil's Coattails."
“And Dream of Phaedian Fancies” by the prolific Gary A. Braunbeck is an interesting attempt to tell a story from different points of view, almost like “Seven Samurai.” It is also a script to accompany a film’s final cut. Braunbeck has the ability to describe things so clearly that you feel you are there experiencing them with him, the mark of the multiple Stoker-award-winning author he is. (6 Stokers, 3 Shocklines “Shocker” Awards, an International Horror Guild Award and a World Fantasy Award nomination). A bouquet of flowers lying on the steps of a porch sets off the story. One character (Gene) says, “What the hell good does any physical item do for the person who’s now dead?” A very creative, different format. Braunbeck, the author of “Coffin County” and “Far, Dark Fields” delivers as only he can in this short piece.
“If You Love Me” by Paul G. Bens, Jr. is that most horrible of things: a horror story that could, conceivably, be true. No paranormal beasts or ghosts from beyond. Just a simple story of love. “If you love me, you won’t die first,” says one gay lover to another. As Bens notes, so insightfully, “It is a powerful aphrodisiac to find so blatantly in another what is lacking in oneself, and, eventually, life moves on and you have to find your own way.” But negotiating the world of AIDS forces decisions on this gay couple that should never be faced by anyone.
Along the way, as you read the stories, enjoy the wonderful artwork, the insightful author comments, and find your own favorite stories. It’s a wonderful companion piece to The Bleeding Edge: Dark Barriers, Dark Frontiers. For me, Melanie Tems and Jason Brock touched me, probably because the themes of their stories had just resonated in my own life, but all were well-written, well-edited and beautifully illustrated.