Book Reviews

[Dave1442397]

You won't be disappointed if you do, believe me. I've not yet read his novels The Intruder and Run from the Hunter but can vouch for his short stories.

3 collections cover most of the body of his work: The Hunger, Night Ride and Yonder, but actually miss 17 of his published stories in addition to the 14 unpublished found in A Touch of the Creature.

Some legwork went into figuring out what is needed to cover the stories missing from Mass and Creature, but in case anyone here is interested I created a fairly complex Excel sheet covering his career that I'm unable to upload.

Long story short, if you want to read every last one of his stories you need 7 books, and you'll need a table if you want to work out efficiencies. Best of Beaumont covers about 1/2 that are missing from Mass and Creature.

The Hunger
Night Ride
Yonder

Mass for Mixed Voices
Best of Beaumont
Selected Stories
A Touch of the Creature

Thanks, I may ask you for that spreadsheet one of these days.

I have:

Black Country
Free Dirt
Night Rider
Selected Stories
The Beautiful People

Once i get through those I may need to look for more.

[Tommy]

I love your website Andrew! Very cool indeed!!

[bugen]

You won't be disappointed if you do, believe me. I've not yet read his novels The Intruder and Run from the Hunter but can vouch for his short stories.

3 collections cover most of the body of his work: The Hunger, Night Ride and Yonder, but actually miss 17 of his published stories in addition to the 14 unpublished found in A Touch of the Creature.

Some legwork went into figuring out what is needed to cover the stories missing from Mass and Creature, but in case anyone here is interested I created a fairly complex Excel sheet covering his career that I'm unable to upload.

Long story short, if you want to read every last one of his stories you need 7 books, and you'll need a table if you want to work out efficiencies. Best of Beaumont covers about 1/2 that are missing from Mass and Creature.

The Hunger
Night Ride
Yonder

Mass for Mixed Voices
Best of Beaumont
Selected Stories
A Touch of the Creature

[Dave1442397]

I have five Beaumont books that I haven't gotten around to reading, although I've had them for over six years now. Sounds like I need to bump them up to the top of the to-read pile.

[bugen]

A Touch of the Creature - Charles Beaumont

Satan sipped at his liquor and scrooged up his face. “This here is a highly unusual conversation,” says he. “Hmm. You want ta know what I do with souls, hey? Let’s see now: give me a minute ta study . . . Hmm. You mean, what do I do with—Well, I—That is—Hellfire, what’s in this corn anyways? Danged if I can recomember; though I know well they is some reason.”

Here it is. For me, the companion book to Centipede’s unstoppable Mass for Mixed Voices, though this book was published far in advance of that career retrospective.

Both uncollected and unpublished, the second word especially is a bit of a scare card for me. Unpublished? Why? Was there something wrong with the stories? Were they unfinished? I’ll sometimes pass because of asking myself questions like these. But Mass for Mixed Voices was a collection of the century, and none of these stories are in there. Bottom line is, they’re Charles Beaumont, and that’s enough for me. The fact that the collection is introduced by Richard Matheson, with nothing but kind words, cements the deal.

These stories are a bit different that the Beaumont I’m familiar with, though they’re remarkable tales. Not as much Twilight Zone, but plenty of recognizable life, often dark. There’s some weird here, too, and most exhibit the mastery he was known for: intelligent, lean, dark, sometimes hitting hard or touching deeply—all Beaumont.

I’ve included a full, hidden list of the stories for those who want a brief summary of each, but in a brilliant overall collection, here are my favorites with a little additional commentary:

“Adam’s Off Ox” – A honky-tonk of a story about Billy the traveling salesman hawking his miracle cure-all and a deal with the Devil for him to tell the truth once in his life.

Joe Lansdale may have risen from the ashes of stories such as these. Fast-paced, fantastically told in the vernacular, and in a somewhat rip-roaring style that Mr. Lansdale would go on to perfect.

“The Rival” – Tim suspects his wife is having an affair and one day returns home hours earlier than expected. He finds a strange coat in the apartment and confronts his wife, who admits to the affair and that she’s seeing the new beau tonight. Convinced the manly thing to do is to meet his rival, Tim agrees to travel with his wife to the rendezvous in order for him to bring his own relationship with her to a close.

Though this one does require some additional suspension of disbelief, I’m surprised “The Rival” was never published. A very strong story, it’s got a lot of heart and is one of my favorites here.

“A Friend of the Family” – Reynolds is on a date with a co-worker when a man from the office invites himself to sit down and attempts to ruin the relationship by speaking at length of Reynolds’ recently deceased wife.

This is a beautiful story of life and death, and my favorite in the collection. With stories like this it doesn’t matter whether or not they’re fiction. They are true, and I defy you not to be moved. If you can get your hands on this book or this story, read it, and then advise your friends and family to do the same. You will have made the world a little bit better if you do.

“Moon in Gemini” – Jodi is pregnant, and as she goes about a few daily errands her inner monologue gets her increasingly upset as her worries compound.

This one doesn’t quite have the sparkle of some of the other stories contained here, but it contains something else: a ridiculously strong character study.

“Resurrection Island” – To get a scoop, a Hollywood magazine writer smuggles himself as an extra into the newest mega-blockbuster filming of the industry’s top director’s newest project, where thousands of extras are shipped to the director’s private island for filming, not knowing what to expect.

Another fantastic entry, this one’s packed with lean muscle and stark imagery and is an epic showing despite being a short story.

full story list

Spoiler!

“Adam’s Off Ox” - A honky-tonk of a story about Billy the traveling salesman hawking his miracle cure-all and a deal with the Devil for him to tell the truth once in his life.

“A Long Way from Capri” - A man and woman go to a bar, where the woman decides to tell him she can’t marry him on account of her past.

“With the Family” - Gallagher is tossing ‘em back, crying to the bartender how he doesn’t want to go to his in-laws’ place for Christmas but he’d promised his wife. The bartender convinces his to go, then two hours later the man returns and explains what happened.

“Moon in Gemini” - Jodi is pregnant, and as she goes about a few daily errands her inner monologue gets her increasingly upset as her worries compound.

“The Indian Piper” - Clayton removes the barrel of his gun from his temple and follows the sound of piping he’s heard recently to its source, a bare apartment containing only a man, his bizarre instrument he calls The Pipes, and a story.

“Lachrymosa” - A man and a woman, both recently widowed, meet while grieving in a cemetery and discuss their recent losses.

“The Rival” - Tim suspects his wife is having an affair and returns home hours earlier than expected one day. He finds a strange coat in the apartment and confronts his wife, who admits to the affair and that she’s seeing the new beau tonight. Convinced the manly thing to do is to meet his rival Tim agrees to travel with his wife to the rendezvous in order to bring the relationship to a close.

“The Junemoon Spoon” - A down on his luck businessman, previously a top salesman, relates the story to an associate in a bar of his latest trip where he unloaded a bunch of junk. In a bar on the trip, he had witnessed a terribly ugly man pick up one of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and heard the story of a magic spoon that made it possible, then gone about trying to get the girl.

“Time and Again” - A Mr. Friedman is selling his expensive book collection, and is initially given a lowball offer but the offer is quickly withdrawn. The potential buyer states the collection is worth much more than he is authorized to pay, and advises not to sell to a bookstore or library, but to keep the books so their beauty is not wasted.

“A Friend of the Family” - Reynolds is on a date with a co-worker when a man from the office invites himself to sit down and ruin the relationship by speaking at length of Reynolds’ recently deceased wife.

“Mr. Underhill” - A Tracer, specializing in tracking down shipments, one day gets it in his head to sign one of his replies with a name he made up, Mr. Underhill. He starts doing so more and more frequently, and one day a new hire with the name Underhill arrives and is to be trained as a Tracer.

“Resurrection Island” - To get a scoop, a Hollywood magazine writer smuggles himself as an extra into the newest mega-blockbuster filming of the industry’s top director’s newest project, where thousands of extras are shipped to the director’s private island for filming, not knowing what to expect.

“The Pool” - A surrealistic story of a Hollywood screenwriter rising through the echelons of success.

“Fallen Star” - A sad tale of a writer sent to interview a once-popular Hollywood actress.

Richard Matheson has the introduction and Christopher Beaumont the forward, and I’d recommend skipping both until you’ve read the stories. Christopher Beaumont’s piece doesn’t discuss the stories at all, but is particularly moving after you’ve seen what all of the hullabaloo with this writer is about. And you’ll see it, it’s here. Not so much in horror or even speculative fiction this time, but in perception and humanity, and in the skill with which we’re examined.

High marks again, some stories being the highest, to you, Mr. Charles Beaumont. I am deeply saddened to have finished the book, as I was with your retrospective collection. You died far too young and the world was deprived of a truly special writer. I miss you; I wish I would have met you. We all miss you, even if we don’t know it.

“It’s like winning twenty hands of poker and then losing fifteen. I don’t know why, but you’re never happy about the twenty you won.”

4 stars

SAM_5443.jpg

SAM_5410.jpg

SAM_5421.jpg

SAM_5423.jpg

SAM_5414.jpg

SAM_5434.jpg

[bugen]

I'm sure it'll come up again in a future post, especially with guys like Ellison who really approached this stuff head-on. Looking forward to trying it again, and thanks for you comments!

[Theli]

Well that's too bad, wish I'd been able to read it. I still enjoyed the current review though!

[bugen]

Love it! Looks fantastic! I just read the Ellison's Wonderland review and didn't see anything particularly controversial. What was it you had edited out>

Thanks, Theli!

When I was first writing the Ellison Wonderland post the format was different than most of the ones I'd previously done, where I had little asides here and there when some of Ellison's stories had been built on touchy concepts.

Specifically I had an aside after the write-up of the story, "Mealtime," which is all about racism, where I was harsh with some of the more extreme ends of the Social Justice Warrior crowd. People can be quick to witch-hunt these days and I figured there was a possibility it might not go over too well so decided to scrap the whole format I was messing with and just write it normally.

So what's on my site is still the exact same as the one here on the forum--I'd have to completely rewrite the thing to change it back. It just bugged me afterwards because I though the format was kinda cool, and the aside comments were both funny and true.

[Theli]

Hey all, something happened during the Ellison Wonderland review that got me thinking.

I have very strong feelings on some issues (this one was racism and the climate of relations) that I felt I needed to edit from the review in an effort to keep from offending anyone. Not that my position can’t be defended, but it’s a highly-charged subject and this forum is such an overall positive place I didn’t want to see any of it devolve and it be my fault. Nevertheless, the viewpoint was a solid one and it bothered me not to include it, especially since it piggybacked on one of Mr. Ellison’s stories. And it wasn’t the first time this had happened.

So https://bugensbooks.com/ was launched. It’s taken me about a month to bring it up to date, and it means no more self-censoring. When the situation dictates, the gloves are coming off.

Physical books at the site have been extensively photographed. Some of these books contain 5-10 pics. Some contain 50 or more, I kid you not. If you’re unfamiliar with Centipede’s The Monk or The Golem¸ or Cemetery Dance’s IT, or Subterranean Press’s The Club Dumas, you’ll probably be amazed with the level of artwork and detail these guys put into the productions and I’ve tried to represent it in photos.

Also, feel free to get in spirited arguments with me (or each other) on the site if you have strong opinions! I’ll moderate if anything gets out of hand but am not really expecting situations coming to that. What we’ve got in common as genre and book lovers brings us together more than I would’ve thought—we’re practically family and often present a united front.

I still plan to post in Book Reviews for appropriate books and positive reviews but if I don’t like a book, it’s already been reviewed here, it doesn’t fit the forum or something gets too controversial I’ll post it only on my site instead of censoring or abstaining. And each book review posted at https://bugensbooks.com/ will have as many accompanying photos as necessary to capture the production. The site’s searchable, has an alphabetic index, a pull-down menu by author and is viewable by publisher.

So check it out if you feel like it, and happy reading!

Love it! Looks fantastic! I just read the Ellison's Wonderland review and didn't see anything particularly controversial. What was it you had edited out>

[bugen]

Sorry for the massive wall of a review. I tried to figure out how to streamline this, including hiding the 1-sentence short stories, but the reviews of the novel, novella and novelettes dwarf that anyway, so I gave up. There's just a ton of subject material here; the book is huge. And I guess if people are considering spending $200 on a book maybe a long-winded review isn't so bad.

This one just grew out of control, and most of the other Masters books are even bigger.

[bugen]

The White Cat (novelette) - William Legrand and Helen Whitman are discussing the demise of Edgar Allen Poe, and Mr. Legrand advances a theory that Mr. Poe was actually murdered with mesmerism enacted by a mysterious Reynolds (who he in real life was raving about immediately prior to his strange death), and was in mortal combat for his life and trapped within horrific visions at the end. 4-


Generally speaking I’m not a huge poetry fan, though I do read some scattered here and there and will sometimes love one or two. This collection contains 12 pages of his poetry, most if which I could go without. Mr. Chappell was known for excellent poems as well as his prose, so before I’m strung up by his fans I can say I did very much enjoy The Sea Text, about the forbidden knowledge, power and uncaring nature of the sea. Rider was also great, about an unknown rider picking up children and spiriting them away to happiness, “to the place near dim and far.” Both were excellent.

The book concludes with an interview by Darrell Schweitzer which has a good deal of biographic material as well as a look back at Mr. Chappell’s career. If you’re one of those that like to know a few real-life details of an author before diving into his fiction, DON’T read it here first. They talk about the surprise ending to one of the stories and this could ruin it for you, so either check out Wikipedia or just wait until you’ve finished the book.

This is an excellent collection of fiction, and while expensive, I’m happy to have picked it up. Centipede outdoes even their normal, top-level production values with the Masters series. The book itself is massive, the paper photo-quality, thick and durable, and there are many illustrations throughout. The cover art is amazing and disturbing, as are some of the color interiors. These stories are often bleak, sad, and the black and white illustrations serve them perfectly.

I’d like to point out if you want to get your feet wet before purchasing something like this you can cover 1/2 of the fiction with the novel Dagon plus the short story collection More Shapes Than One, giving you an excellent idea of what you’ll find here. But if you love it, and you want quality, this is probably the number one book you can purchase. It’s very highly recommended if you like weird, dystopian, dark fiction. This is not the type of horror where limbs are being ripped off, it’s more about the phantom limb where you miss it because it was there, and now it’s gone.

“The most fearful thing about a ghost is that she may not exist.”

4 stars

SAM_5357.jpg

SAM_5362.jpg

SAM_5279.jpg

SAM_5284.jpg

SAM_5314.jpg

SAM_5369.jpg

[bugen]

Masters of the Weird Tale - Fred Chappell

Those familiar with Centipede’s Masters Series know that we're looking at a type of story where H.P. Lovecraft is king, with some stories even set in his fictional world. You do not need to read Lovecraft to enjoy these, but you’re going to get more out of them if you do. A few works such as “The Colour Out of Space,” “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “The Thing on the Doorstep” have my highest recommendations, and of course the popular “At the Mountains of Madness” and “The Shadow Out of Time” are key works.

If you haven’t, or won’t, read these, what you need to recognize about Lovecraft’s world is that his monsters cannot be fought, they cannot be beaten. We may as well be a packet of tea trying to take down Mt. Rushmore; we’ve already lost, just by being us. These stories aren't necessary like Lovecraft's, but some of them can be, and the influence of his mythos can be felt. He is neither the first nor the last, but king. Otherwise 'weird' characteristics involve the supernatural as a rule and take closer looks at our world through bent lenses.

This is my first cover-to-cover Masters read, purchased after reading Dagon, and I skipped the Intro. As mentioned before I do this a lot, especially when reading an author with whom I’m relatively unfamiliar. After finishing all stories and poetry I went back to the Intro and in retrospect this is what I’d recommend if you are unfamiliar with Mr. Chappell. Specifically, there’s a revelation about the story The White Cat and I think you’ll enjoy the story more if you get to this little tidbit after you’ve read the tale itself. But don’t skip the Intro entirely. It’s an enlightening dissection of the author’s feeling on the purpose(s) of dark fiction, boiling down to one central idea he expounds: In tenebris, lux (Shadows make light visible).

We open with:

Dagon (novel)

“Suffering is simply one means of carving a design upon an area of time.”

Peter and his wife Sheila move to an inherited farmhouse and soon meet a neighbor, evidently a squatter on their new property whose family has lived there for generations. Their neighbor Morgan, at his bare dwelling, introduces Peter to Mina, who could just “eat him all up,” and Peter is uncomfortable with everything about these two. He chooses to ignore them and go about his business, and eventually discovers odd letters in the house using unknown language much of the time and speaking nonsensically at others. Time passes and Peter and Sheila begin arguing over trivial matters and their relationship starts to suffer.

Right here any mention of plot needs to stop to avoid spoilers. We’re about 1/3 in, the set is dressed and the players are ready.

I’m going to touch on a few of the key plot points in R’lyehian to maintain secrecy:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Ehye y-hafh'drn uln nw gotha, y-ya R'lyeh Cthulhu ya ph'throd k'yarnak Tsathoggua h'uaaah phlegeth ngR'lyeh, hrii R'lyeh uln Shub-Niggurath nnnTsathoggua kn'a hrii naflsgn'wahl shagg.

That being said, this isn’t a long book, but it will likely drain you anyway. It isn’t the primal emotions of fear or hate that take their toll like so much horror, it’s the pervading sense of resignation to fate, a Lovecraftian favorite. And here it’s about as brutal as I’ve ever seen it.

Dagon is a bleak, addictive masterpiece of dark, hopeless, painful fiction. Lovecraft would have been proud, though the language use here is much warmer than his own. This novel is highly recommended, but make sure you have a support system around you so you can always tell at a glance everything is alright. If you're alone in the dark, be careful.

5-

“Duet” – This is a beautiful, soulful tale of a middle-aged man performing beyond his abilities when singing songs at his friend’s funeral. It’s one of my favorites in the entire book. 5-

“Linnaeus Forgets” – The study of a strange plant with fantastic, miniature elements, conducted by the botanist, Linnaeus. 3-

“Ladies from Lapland” – Three men travel to Lapland for a job, but the assistants do all the work as the surveyor is more interested in sating himself with the local ladies. 3-

“The Snow That Is Nothing in the Triangle” – I didn’t care for this one, about a mathematician explaining a seemingly crackpot theory to his students told in an increasingly fragmented style. 1+

“Barcarole” – An excellent story, the composer Offenbach encounters a man exactly like himself in appearance, and after they part Offenbach becomes insistent on tracking the other man, Zimmer, down and finding out more about his life. 4-

“Weird Tales” – Another excellent story, this one’s about a few men interested in mythology and their encounters with H.P. Lovecraft himself, and a bizarre journey to another time. 4

“All human speech was merely the elaboration of an original shriek of terror.”

“The Somewhere Doors” – An obscure writer in the late 1930’s, specializing in small, often sad tales that rarely get published, receives a visit from a strange woman who tells him he has more admirers than he imagines, and tells him of a special door that he can take, once, to a land or time that may be better suited to him. One of my favorite stories, my heart breaks a little when thinking about it. You don’t want to miss this one. 5

“You’ve got woman trouble, Arthur? Hard to believe.”

“I’ve got an outstanding lack of woman trouble,” he said. “It’s hard for me to add up how much woman trouble I don’t have.”

“The Adder” – Another excellent story about a bookseller who receives and temporarily houses the Necronomicon, and notices the infernal book is affecting other beloved works. 4-

“Things have learned to walk that ought to crawl.”

“Ember” – A man who murdered his cheating girlfriend is thinking of how to get away, and decides to escape to Ember Mountain where no one goes after dark. 2+

“When I came out of Paradise, they were shooting at me.”

“Miss Prue” – The title character waits for her suitor, Mr. M, who recently committed suicide. 3

“Mankind Journeys Through Forests of Symbols” – A dream, physically manifested and blocking highway 51, is a problem, because “no dream of such scale and density had been reported before in North Carolina.” Authorities have to figure out what to do about it. 3+

“Alma” – Another excellent story, in a world where women are treated live livestock, a man thinks differently than other men do because he had his own woman once and “lived real close with her.” 4

“After Revelation” – After the world had been destroyed twice, science was outlawed. A man, jailed for practicing science, finds himself mysteriously released. 3

“The Lodger” - A well-read man has his mind invaded by the mind of a deceased acquaintance who was pompous, a scholar of obscure works, well-versed in occult arts and convinced of his own immortality. 4-

“Once you glimpse the vistas I can provide, once you taste the hidden knowledge I have acquired, you will find my outlook irresistible.”

“The Flame” - Men are attracted to different woman for lots of different reasons, but the relatively homely Andrea irresistibly attracts vampires. 3

“Gift of Roses” - An elderly blind woman and her charge are on their final mission, a trek to a particular gravesite that holds a particular strain of rose. The blind woman has exceptional senses, and an almost spiritual connection with the flowers, a gift the younger woman wishes she could experience. 2+

Remnants (novella) - Earth has been annihilated by the Old Ones and a small family, the boy Vern, his autistic younger sister Echo, their mother Moms and their dog Queenie have starving lives in the forest where they hide. Even thinking of their slaughtered father is enough to alert the Old Ones to their presence and location; they live a miserable existence.

Meanwhile, a crew of surviving Great Ones, mortal enemies of the Old Ones, is on a mission to rescue any survivors. The youngest crew member, Seeker, identifies the telepathic Echo and has sent an image to the girl and the equally telepathic Queenie, of a possible means of escape if they hurry.

Echo cannot speak, but sometime communicates through drawings that Vern and Moms have to decipher. When they are nearly out of food and winter is coming Echo makes a scratch drawing that may be a location and the family decides to figure out where it might be and how to get there.

Next to the novel Dagon this is the longest story in the book. It’s a solid, complicated story as Vern logically tries to deduce what Echo’s drawing could mean and contains the hopelessness associate with the horror of Lovecraft’s creations. The rescuers speak a form of broken English conferred by The Ship so their communication can be harder to follow than you might think. But this all adds to the tension nicely as the window for escape closes.

Anyone unfamiliar with Lovecraft’s world can get a good idea of the power wielded by the creatures mankind is up against in the mythos with the following quote from this novella:

“They (the Old Ones) would not think of hiding or disguising their presences. They do not confer upon us the dignity of being considered their opponents.”

3+

Uncle Moon in the Raintree Hill (novelette) - A fanciful tale told from the perspective of two sibling children as they battle their Uncle Moon, who was responsible for their grandmother’s death in their minds, as The Princess of Thieves and her Sturdy Helper. This one is slightly darker than it might sound and an interesting surrealistic fantasy. 3

“There was no way it could have gone wrong, but it had gone all wrong.

“Hooyoo Love” - At first sight a man falls hopelessly in love with a woman when she completely, utterly ignores him. She is a Hooyoo, a human mimicking the Yeunnin, an alien race on Earth completely devoid of all emotion and reaction, so the man becomes one too in order to be with her. 3-

cont'd

[bugen]

Thanks, Dave! Comments from you guys mean a lot to me, I really appreciate hearing from you.

[Dave1442397]

So https://bugensbooks.com/ was launched. It’s taken me about a month to bring it up to date, and it means no more self-censoring. When the situation dictates, the gloves are coming off.
So check it out if you feel like it, and happy reading!

Great site, Andrew! I always look forward to reading your reviews.

[bugen]

Thanks, man. It was a tricky balancing act to write, that's for sure!

Re: print editions... I already have a limited edition deal lined up, but no trade edition currently planned...

That's great, congrats! I'll be sure to pick one up.