Book Reviews

[Sock Monkey]

Phenomenal review, Bugen. I especially appreciate the breakdown of what stories are in the different editions. I hope Centipede continues the Library books as they tend to be more in my price range than the Masters series.

[bugen]

continued:

Carnacki stories:

The Carnacki stories of Hodgson are the reason I first pursued the author. One of the earliest examples of the ‘Occult Detective,’ most of these stories take place entirely in the safety of Carnacki’s home, with his friends over for dinner, drinks, pipes, and a story relating his latest adventure. Carnacki is an educated man, with an extensive history of dealing with the occult, and while he never starts any of his missions with the wide-eyed belief of Fox Mulder, he’s not a pure skeptic either, choosing to let all events play out as they may and he’ll be ready for whatever the outcome. Utilizing common sense, intellect, books, sigils, scattered occult paraphernalia, and (importantly) his self-devised electric pentacle, he digs into each supernatural mission, real or imagined, and does his best to bring everything to a close. He’s often successful, but not infallible, and his friends hold him in the highest regard. These are largely detective stories with rationale providing the drive forward in the face of strange events, and generally involve the investigation of a mansion, castle or room.

The Gateway of the Monster – 2+
The House among the Laurels – 3
The Whistling Room –2+
The Horse of the Invisible – 4
The Searcher of the End House – 3
The Thing Invisible – 3
The Hog – 2-
The Haunted Jarvee – 2-

Most of these stories I found better than fair (2 stars), with a couple of them just on the underside.

There’s one knockout in the Carnacki collection, “The Horse of the Invisible.” While these stories tend to unravel as mysteries, supernatural involvement or not, this one had some real scariness to it, as Carnacki tries to save a recently engaged girl from the old family curse of being killed by an invisible horse whenever a member of the family is betrothed. The strongest of all of Hodgson’s Carnacki stories, and highly recommended.

Sargasso Seas stories:

“From a Tideless Sea” – A story within a story of a marooned boat, caught in a strange web of seaweed with nearly the entire crew dead. A man and the Captain’s daughter, wed just two days before the Captain passed away, attempt to survive for years while under attack by unknown monsters.

3+

“The Mystery of the Derelict” – A crew caught in a calm sea spots a derelict vessel caught in the same, and despite an oncoming storm investigate the ship, and a fierce battle to escape ensues when they discover what occupies the ruined vessel.

3

“The Thing in the Weeds” – During the night two crewmen are investigating a strange sound when their lights are forcibly smashed and massive, thudding impacts are heard amidst the screams of the First Mate. The second crewman returns a few seconds later with a new light to find the First Mate gone, and he enlists the help of the Captain and the Second Mate to discover the disturbance while the rest of the crew hides below deck. Loved the opening line here, “This is an extraordinary tale.”

4

“The Finding of the Graiken” – A man’s wife has been lost at sea, and months later our narrator comes into possession of wealth, and a yacht. To alleviate his friend’s remorse they journey on the seas, but the distressed man commandeers the ship from his friend, converting the crew, and sails to an unknown destination with our narrator as prisoner.

3+

Other Sea stories:

“A Tropical Horror” – A nameless monster from the sea terrorizes a ship and her crew, and a couple of crew members attempt to wait out the slaughter while in hiding.

2+

“The Voice in the Night” – Two men aboard a schooner are hailed during the night, as a man in a rowboat, refusing to come aboard or receive any light on him whatsoever, requests provisions and tells the men of the horrors that have befallen him and his wife.

4

“Out of the Storm” – A man visits his scientist friend to find him maniacally scribbling away a one-sided conversation an invention of his is picking up. It seems a man in the midst of shipwreck is losing his sanity as a few survivors turn on each other and he begins to think of the water as God.

5-

“The Derelict” – Another tale of seafaring, a small group of men board a derelict vessel they find floating in a viscous substance at sea, and their panic rises as they slowly begin to comprehend the nature of the ruined craft.

3+

“The Haunted Pampero” – A young man obtains a ship and is to be Captain, but the ship is reputed to be haunted and his wife is quite unhappy with the new possession. An excellent passage that doesn’t play quite as well out of context, when his wife has expressed her displeasure at him taking the ship and is now insisting on accompanying him on the voyage, reads, “And so, like a sensible loving fellow, he fought every inch of the ground with her; the natural result being that at the end of an hour he retired – shall we say ‘retreated’ - to smoke a pipe in his den and meditate on the perversity of womankind in general, and his own wife in particular.” During the voyage strange occurrences happen on the ship, and the Captain begins to wonder if the stories of the haunting are true.

3-

“Demons of the Sea” – A ship finds herself in unsettled seas, where turbulent splotches are localized, the water temp is far above normal and strange mists leak through. They eventually cross paths with another ship, seemingly manned, and as the new ship approaches the crew’s terror builds.

4-

“The Riven Night” – The recounting of a sea voyage where the Captain, married after a long pursuit of his love, was together with her for but 6 weeks before she passed and is undertaking the present trip in a melancholy state when the ship runs across strange lights and phantoms on the water.

3+

"The Albatross" – The story of a Mate who spies an albatross with a strange piece of silk tied to it, and when it’s captured finds a note detailing a lone woman stranded on a derelict vessel with the crew dead. She has enough food for one week and gives her coordinates, and the note is discovered 18 days later and 250 miles away while the crew ponders her rescue among the deathly-calm seas, where they themselves are stranded.

3-

"The Haunting of the Lady Shannon" - An oft-drunken Captain is having disciplinary issues among his crew, and a death toll begins to mount with no ready explanation for the murders.

3

"The Stone Ship" – Seafaring men hear a strange gurgling, like a running stream, during the night and out of sight of their still ship. As no one can fathom what could cause the sound the Captain and a small group of men embark on a rowboat to discover its source.

3+

Miscellaneous stories:

“Goddess of Death” – A statue is coming to life and killing people, and two men chase it down.

2+

“The Room of Fear” – A mother’s greatest peeve is cowardice, which she sees in her son when he first moves into his own room. Her insistence that he ‘grow up’ struggles with the boy’s fear as the shadowy hand that materializes over him each night in the room presses him down. Besides the novel The House on the Borderland, this is among my favorite writings of Hodgson and is notably only present in the Library of Weird Fiction volume, not the Masters book.

5-

"Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani" (AKA “The Baumoff Explosive”) - The best argument I've seen yet for the Masters over the Library series, this is the story of one learned, respected man of medicine offering a proof to a friend and peer that the darkness on the hill after Christ's crucifixion was a physical manifestation from the Man/God himself, not external, unrelated phenomena. This sounds like a mouthful, but it's an easily digestible horror story and an amazing work. Present only in the Masters volume.

4+

"The Terror of the Water-Tank" - Murders are occurring on the top of a local water-tank, and investigators are at a loss for a culprit. They eventually settle on a man in possession of stolen property, but evidence shows he couldn't have committed the crime and it's up to two men to arrive at the truth.

3-


And there you have it. In my opinion, I’m quite happy with the Library of Weird Fiction book that doesn’t contain the (reputed) typos in my favorite story, but there are other issues that I can verify from photos like typos on page numbers in the Masters TOC that I also didn’t find throughout the Library read. I very much wish that “Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani” and “The Stone Ship” was present in the Library edition, as well as other, necessary omissions like the novel “The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig.’” However, the Masters book is missing “The Room of Fear,” which I find tough to excuse. Most of the knockout stories are present in both.

Despite a misgiving here or there, I’d buy the Masters book in a flat second if I had the money and the opportunity. This is amazing material. For those looking at neither Masters nor Library but loving good stories, I recommend the novel The House on the Borderland and the short stories “Out of the Storm” and “The Room of Fear” without reservation, wherever you can find them.

*As I only own the Library of Weird Fiction edition, the gaps were filled in with an ebook. Even the massive, 35 story/novel combination of the ebook did not contain everything found in the Centipede releases, but is excellent for those looking to test the waters.

Library of Weird Fiction: William Hope Hodgson – 4 stars


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[bugen]

Library of Weird Fiction / Masters of the Weird Tale: William Hope Hodgson

The purpose here is not only to review a great deal of the career of one of our favorite, and one of our earliest, weird storytellers, but also to compare two of the definitive volumes released from Centipede Press, being the Masters of the Weird Tale and Library of Weird Fiction: Hodgson editions. All stories found in either volume are below. The review does not apply to the comprehensive 5 volume the Nightshade release, which I believe is his entire catalog of fiction.

First, a couple of blanket statements are in order. The Masters book is physically much larger than the Library, and the Masters contains much additional material that is standard to the series, such as extensive illustrations and the overall production quality of the book itself, not to mention four entire novels. However, the Library of Weird Fiction book is nothing to scoff at, containing two novels itself, and the table of contents between the two differs more than you would expect.

More depth below, but here is a table of how the stories break down comparatively. I’ve reordered them alphabetically so it’s easy to spot the differences:

Masters of the Weird Tale	Library of Weird Fiction
A Tropical Horror	A Tropical Horror
Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani
	Demons of the Sea
From the Tideless Sea	From the Tideless Sea
Out of the Storm	Out of the Storm
The Albatross
The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' - novel
The Derelict	The Derelict
The Finding of the Graiken	The Finding of the Graiken
The Gateway of the Monster	The Gateway of the Monster
The Ghost Pirates - novel	The Ghost Pirates - novel
	The Goddess of Death
The Haunted Jarvee	The Haunted Jarvee
	The Haunted Pampero
The Haunting of Lady Shannon
The Hog	The Hog
The Horse of the Invisible	The Horse of the Invisible
The House Among the Laurels	The House Among the Laurels
The House on the Borderland - novel	The House on the Borderland - novel
	The Mystery of the Derelict
The Night Land - novel
	The Riven Night
	The Room of Fear
The Searcher of the End House	The Searcher of the End House
The Stone Ship
The Terror of the Water-Tank
	The Thing in the Weeds
The Thing Invisible	The Thing Invisible
The Voice in the Night	The Voice in the Night
The Whistling Room	The Whistling Room

Novels:

The House on the Borderland – previously reviewed but reproduced here:

A couple of travelers come across a manuscript among ruins that details a man’s life in his house, the creatures that came for him, and time.

I’d been meaning to get to this novel for months, and finally picked it up for a moment yesterday. A few hours later, having had no intention of doing so, I closed the book, finished. A day later I have not yet been able to shake the story. This is not traditional, and requires the active participation of the reader’s imagination. It’s not one where you can sit back and let it wash over you, you must engage.

Coming in at number 8 on Centipede’s top 100 horror novels of all time, this book is a mind-bender, containing everything that’s ever happened as well as everything that will ever happen.

Easily one of the best novels I've read.

After reading most of his career, I feel this is the story, the masterpiece that few authors, even the most successful, ever hit – it’s a staggering work. I had a profound experience reading this in the text-only but still luxurious Library edition, and was later to find there are reputably some serious typos in the Masters edition of this story which might pull me out from the magic (check Nguyen’s Amazon review). I feel this is Hodgson’s finest work and I need it to be perfect to serve as the permanent copy on the shelf.

5 stars

The Ghost Pirates - The story of a crew long at sea, some of whom begin hearing and seeing things, a phenomenon not too uncommon in their circumstances, but as the visions become more frequent, the visuals clearer, and as people begin to disappear, decisions must be made about how seriously to take the threat, assuming it exists.

This one has three elements working against it. First, the language barrier from tales written in this time (1909) compared to today’s mainstream fiction. Second, a huge portion of the dialogue here is in pirate-speak, so there’s a bit of a hurdle getting used to it. And third, the pirate-speak isn’t today’s pirate-speak of Johnny Depp, it’s yesterday’s, so the language challenges compound each other.

Now the good news. While I spent around the first half of the novel getting used to the language and dialects of the pirates, to the point I was beginning to wonder if I was plowing ahead out of stubbornness alone, something happened early in the second half. I got spooked – the story, and its language, was working. And it might not any other way than it was told. These guys are at sea on a ship of leaking wood and rope that’s nothing like the alloyed, indestructible metals and plastic compounds of today. It’s an environment that’s as alien to most of us as planet XBR-27 would be, and the wording makes us focus differently; to peer into the darkness in concentration because it’s tough to make out what is happening. Just like these guys did. You do get used to the style, and it’s an effective method of telling this story.

3- stars

The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ – An adventure novel dealing with a shipwrecked crew on a monstrously inhabited island. The crew begins struggling with issues such as dehydration and starvation, but the pluck and sensibility of the captain keeps everyone alive and kicking long enough for them to realize the other boat shipwrecked on the island, which they had thought to be abandoned, is actually still crewed. Unable to reach the craft through conventional means communication is established and the rescue efforts begin.

3 stars

And finally, the gorilla in the room… This thing is a monster of a novel:

The Night Land - The story of a young man at the end of the world, where the sun has been extinguished and all manner of monstrosities overrun the land, who undertakes a Mordor-like journey to save the love of his life. From one of the two last strongholds of man left on the planet, a massive, 7-mile-high pyramid, he establishes contact with his love with a mild telepathic power, who responds from the other, lesser pyramid across the earth.

This book has been described as a sprawling, post-apocalyptic novel, and that it is, but it also has a kind of adolescent fantasy feel to it. Like the kind of James Bond, hero and heroine stuff we would have written as children had we the ability. It uses a particular style of language that isn't really a hindrance, but doesn't contribute well to flow, and unfortunately I must report that while it is a large novel, it feels about 3 times longer than its page count. Not necessary attributed to the language, but the combination of the style with the theme of the story makes for a challenging read.

NOT to say it's bad, it most certainly is not, but this book was in a minority of the things I read these days that wasn't calling me back to it when I was away. I can see a great many people starting this book and not finishing it.

As a final point, and in direct contrast to The House on the Borderland, this story is a bit too juvenile to fully engage - to laser-focus in on the events and picture in your minds-eye the events as they unfold. Instead, in my opinion this is a story to let wash over you. Steep yourself, then move on. It's a fine adventure tale, but doesn't bring with it the weight and sense of wonder of some of his other works.

2 stars

[Sock Monkey]

Condemned by Michael McBride:

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” are the words that adorn the cover of the Thunderstorm Books edition of Michael McBride’s new thriller. Their use is fitting not just because of their place in the plot of the book—etched into the wall of a dilapidated building, a clue left by a killer of young women—and not because of how dark in content the book is—and it is dark--, but fitting because of how succinctly it sums up the theme of the book: the death of hope, or rather, how quickly we can let the positive aspects in our lives wither and die due to lack of nurture and attention, whether it be marriages, friendships, or the city we live in.

Peter Webber is an investigative journalist who has turned his attention to running his website that exposes the criminals and corruption that run rampant in a financially-crippled Detroit. His sole goal is to help preserve the historic buildings that have been left abandoned and are being stripped for their materials by thieves. After receiving an anonymous tip about looters at an old theater, Peter stumbles upon the mutilated body of young woman left on display in the building. Peter finds himself in a game of cat-and-mouse with the killer, who is quickly claiming other lives.

There is always talk of how a setting is a character in and of itself in book or movie, but rarely have I seen it become such a force than I did in this book. McBride imbues every page with the city’s decay until you can feel the rotten floorboards giving way beneath your feet and smell the damp rot long after you’ve set the book down.

There is so much to enjoy in McBride’s attention to detail, in his characterization of Peter and that of his estranged childhood friend (who is now a police detective working the same case) that it’s unfortunate that the final act can’t hold up to what’s come before. The revelations of who the killer is and their motives comes jarringly fast and then the book shifts its focus from an atmospheric deliberately-paced thriller to an action set-piece straight out of Hollywood, until it reaches its inevitable conclusion that, while it maintains Peter’s solid characterization, feels clichéd. It’s these final missteps that impede the book from being a complete success. While I was disappointed in the ending of this book, and find it hard to fully recommend it with adding that caveat, I will be on the lookout for more of McBride’s work in the future.

3 stars (out of 5)

The Thunderstorm limited edition also comes with the novella, “Firebug”, which I had previously read in the collection Mia Moja. This has a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat opener that completely had me in its grip. Unfortunately, I’m not a huge fan of police procedurals, as the story reveals itself to be, so the rest of the tale did not do too much for me. It is solidly written so if you are a fan, then you might get a whole lot more out of it than I did. But, man, that opening…

[Martin]

Drunken Fireworks - Stephen King
Audio Book read by Tim Sample

I will try to give my feelings on this story without giving away any ritical details as the printed version does not come out until fall.

The story itself is reminiscent of Delores Claiborne as it is promarily a first person narrative given from Alden McCausland as he is being questioned by police about the events of the prior night. The events are a disastrous end to and annual fireworks competition between the McCaslaund's and Massimo's. In general it is an enjoyable story but one of the main elements of the storyline is a memner of the Massimo family who plays the trumpet to highlight events. While a key part of the story regarding why things escalated the trumpet narraitve did not really work for me. Part of the reading that bugged me was that while the reader was speaking as the McCausland mother he would be speaking in her voice and the the narration would switch back to the son but the reader would continue in the moms voice. This only happened twice and may have been intentional as it was supposed be the son telling authorities what his mom said but it distracted me from the story being told. The story does have a very satisfying ending that I did not see coming. Overall I will give it a 3.5 out of 5.

[bugen]

Got my eye on P.S.'s The Ceremonies. Read "The Events at Poroth Farm" a few weeks back in anticipation, but with the pacing of that story I'm curious how a much longer, expanded version of the story is going to function.

I'll second the call for Dark Gods.

[Sock Monkey]

Haven't read the Lucius Shepard yet but you just notched it way up. Looked around and didn't find "Madaket" in his Best of or another collection so I think this is the only copy I've got. I've just read "The Monkey" and now "Fengriffen", but also needed "Nadelman's God" for some reason and haven't read it yet. This book is actually kind of a little gold mine. Mine's a vintage book club edition, $5.

I don't know if "Madaket" is Shepard's best, but I found it to be the most "fun" story out of the book. I'd rank "Nadelman's God" way up there as well. Klein is one of my favorites and "Nadelman" is one heck of a story. It's a shame that Klein doesn't produce more fiction as I've quite enjoyed everything I've read of his. I know that PS is putting out an anniversary edition of The Ceremonies that I plan on snatching up in a heartbeat once offered. Now, if only CD would do an limited of Dark Gods...

[bugen]

Nothing wrong with your "humble copy", bugen. I have the same one, though mine is missing the dust jacket. The whole collection was pretty satisfying if I remember correctly. I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed Lucius Shepard ' s "How the Wind Spoke at Madaket". Best fifty cents I ever spent at a library book sale!

Haven't read the Lucius Shepard yet but you just notched it way up. Looked around and didn't find "Madaket" in his Best of or another collection so I think this is the only copy I've got. I've just read "The Monkey" and now "Fengriffen", but also needed "Nadelman's God" for some reason and haven't read it yet. This book is actually kind of a little gold mine. Mine's a vintage book club edition, $5.

[bugen]

Dagon - Fred Chappell

“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. K'yarnak h'vulgtm li'hee sgn'wahl ooboshu f''bthnk f'mg phlegeth, shogg stell'bsnaoth vulgtlagln ngluiagl hlirgh vulgtm h's'uhn, R'lyehoth cep wgah'n 'bthnk ch' ngfhtagn.

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 fiction. Lovecraft would have been proud, though the language use here is much warmer than his own. This book 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-

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*image of the Centipede release. Will replace with actual photo when my copy arrives.

[marduk]

The Dark Side of the Road - Simon R. Green

Simon R. Green is a prolific and accomplished juggler of genres. He has put his adventurous stamp on urban fantasy (Nightside), traditional fantasy (Hawk and Fisher), science fiction (DeathStalker), spy thrillers (The Secret Histories), and the supernatural (Ghost Finders). Now, with “The Dark Side of The Road” and new character Ishmael Jones, he turns his pen to a more traditional English Mystery, albeit with his own unique flair.

Ishmael Jones is a strange character who may or may not be an extraterrestrial, but even he can’t say for sure. Are his memories real or are they simply stories he’s told himself, the ramblings of an unstable man?

One thing is certain: he hasn’t aged since 1963. Why is not exactly clear in his memory, but as a result he lives a solitary and nomadic life. If he lingers too long in one place people may start to notice.

He makes his living as a contractor “employed to search out secrets, investigate mysteries and shine a light in dark places.” He takes his orders from someone he knows only as the Colonel, who himself speaks on behalf of a secretive Organization.

As the story begins, Jones is surprised to receive an invitation to spend the Christmas holiday at the Colonel’s ancestral home. Like Jones, the Colonel is not a man who likes to get personal, so Jones can only surmise that the Colonel expects some sort of trouble.

Jones hops into a rental car and drives for hours through a massive snowstorm to get to Belcourt Manor. He makes it despite the tough going, but the weather is so harsh that nobody will be leaving the secluded grounds anytime soon.

He meets some of the Belcourt family and friends: the Colonel’s father Walter, mother Diana, stepmother Melanie, and sister Penelope, along with a business partner of Walter’s, a love-crushed young man moping around after Penelope, and Walter’s butler/bodyguard – all in all a well-rounded collection of characters who would be right at home in an Agatha Christie mystery.

One person does not greet Jones upon his arrival – the Colonel himself, known to his family as James Belcourt. The Colonel arrived late the previous night and everyone assumed he was still sleeping – until they cannot find him at all. Now Jones definitely knows that all is not well at Belcourt Manor.

He and Penelope eventually take it upon themselves to walk the grounds; there are quite a few buildings where the Colonel may be holed up or hiding for some reason. After trudging around in the snow and not discovering anything, they are about to head back inside when Jones notices a poorly made snowman in the yard.

A closer inspection uncovers the body of James Belcourt, cross-legged and frozen. His head has been chopped from his body and replaced on top of his torso, and there is no blood underneath or around him.

The stage is now set and the murder mystery kicks into high gear, but with Simon R. Green at the helm be prepared for some strange, atypical revelations. This isn’t your mother’s English Cozy.

[marduk]

Consumed - David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg has over forty years of experience in filmmaking and is responsible for such unique films as The Dead Zone, The Fly, and Crash. He now turns his particular talents to the written word in the form of Consumed, his debut novel.

Nathan Math and Naomi Sebring are a “hard-core nerd couple,” both working as freelancing, globe-trotting photo-journalists. They spend a lot of time apart but stay connected via phone calls, texts, and the internet.

When “Consumed” begins, Naomi is in Paris looking into a possible murder. Armistide Arosteguy is suspected (by some) to have murdered his wife, and some say that murder included ingestion of body parts.

The Arosteguys were something of a celebrated academic couple, both specializing in and teaching philosophy. They were also notorious for their "anything goes" approach to interpersonal relationships, which also extended to some of their students.

Naomi discovers that Aristide traveled to Asia three days before his wife’s body was found and he is now extremely hard to contact. Why is he there? If he’s innocent, why does he just not return home?

Nathan, meanwhile, arrives in Budapest to meet Zoltan Molnar, a renegade doctor once accused of organ trafficking. Molnar’s practice these days can be considered experimental at best and extremely exclusive.

Nathan is there to document an operation on a breast cancer victim. After spending some time with the patient, Nathan has a fling and contracts Roiphe’s disease, which for all intents and purposes was eradicated in the 1960’s.

He learns that Dr. Barry Roiphe, the man credited with the discovery of the disease, lives in Toronto. Nathan travels there to question him and what he finds is a doctor now obsessed with studying his own daughter, Chase.

Chase Roiphe sometimes goes into a trance-like state in which she uses a pair of nail clippers to snip off little bits of her own skin, which she then eats. During these episodes it almost seems as if she’s reenacting a particular scene or situation, but from where do the roots spring?

Naomi travels to Tokyo to meet Aristide Arosteguy and in a short amount of time she finds herself under his spell. She still continues to dig for the truth but with a somewhat compromised objectivity.

In Toronto Nathan learns more about Chase and a startling connection is discovered with people and events across the globe, including the Arosteguys.

Initially pursuing very different stories, Naomi and Nathan discover that the world is indeed a very small – and bizarre – place. As they dig deeper to find the truths of the particular angles they are working and how they interact, the story tumbles into a maze of disinformation, confusion, and just plain weirdness.

“Consumed” is a left-of-center novel with a concept that Chuck Palahniuk would be comfortable with, but the filmmaker’s eye for detail often puts a strain on story progression.

Add to that the stiffness and formality of speech of many of the characters and the novel can sometimes feel like watching a movie with the sound turned off – you’re seeing what’s happening but you feel somewhat removed from it. Still, if you can stomach the more arid prose of this novel, you’ll walk away satisfied.

[marduk]

Here's one for "I, Ripper" by Stephen Hunter:

Jack the Ripper is the fiend who will not die. Numerous authors claim to have discovered Jack’s true identity but after more than a hundred and twenty years and an equally high number of theories it seems many people prefer the mystery to the facts – as if we want to know but at the same time we don’t want to have the mystery taken away.

Stephen Hunter’s “I, Ripper” is a thoroughly researched and imaginative tale told on two fronts: on one side we have Jack and his diary entries, and on the other a memoir of the situation as seen through the eyes of music critic-cum-crime writer “Jeb” (a pseudonym for a well-known real-life person whose identity is presented later in the novel).

Each chapter is devoted to an entry in either Jack’s diary or Jeb’s memoir. This back and forth leads to some repetition and advances come only sporadically, but keep calm and carry on, as they say – your attention will be richly rewarded.

The story itself is rather straight-forward and familiar: a killer is stalking prostitutes on the streets of London in the late 1888 while the police and newsmen try their best to track him down.

Jack’s use of language in his diary indicates not a man crawling through the gutters but rather one who is educated and even refined, able to present a daily persona that would be above suspicion. This is not, however, a tale for the squeamish as his descriptions of the murders are fairly gruesome.

Jeb works for the Star, a rising London paper. Used to writing musical reviews he nonetheless agrees to fill in for an absent crime writer after the first Whitechapel murder occurs. He admits “I had no idea what I was doing,” but with help from his coworkers he falls easily into the role of investigator.

At one point Jeb’s boss Thomas O’Connor suggests writing and publishing a phony letter from the as-yet unnamed killer, which mirrors a real-life theory that Jack never did write letters and those that existed were fabricated by journalists to draw out the killer. After some brainstorming Jeb comes up with the name“Jack the Ripper” and thus is born a legend.

The Ripper’s exploits become the focal point of the city, with everyone proposing theories. At a party one evening Jeb meets Professor Thomas Dare, who is something of a “renegade intellectual” with an abiding interest in languages. Dare has been following the case and offers his considerable intellectual prowess to the efforts to track the Ripper down.

Dare and Jeb spend much time together in a relationship reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They test theories, create criminal profiles, and begin to make some headway.

They eventually settle upon a likely suspect and begin to track him, but to put it mildly the situation does not turn out the way Jeb expects it to, and eventually he finds himself face-to-face with the Ripper.

After the fifth and most gruesome murder (of Mary Jane Kelley), “Jack the Ripper” seemed to disappear into the London fog. Hunter’s story does have a definite ending, however.

“I, Ripper” is a work of fiction that utilizes many real-world theories as building blocks, and Hunter includes an extensive bibliography of sources.

In the Acknowledgments section of the book, Hunter addresses a question that he anticipates many readers would ask, because it is that question: after all of his research does he know who Jack the Ripper really was?

His response?

“Of course I do. Watch for it. It’s going to be fun.”

[Sock Monkey]

Nothing wrong with your "humble copy", bugen. I have the same one, though mine is missing the dust jacket. The whole collection was pretty satisfying if I remember correctly. I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed Lucius Shepard ' s "How the Wind Spoke at Madaket". Best fifty cents I ever spent at a library book sale!

I've also been debating over the Centipede edition. It's a rather large chunk of change, but I keep having this feeling that if I don't pick up a copy I'm going to regret it. And Centipede Press books are rarely found on the cheap in the secondary market.

[bugen]

Fengriffen – David Case

“But, as yet, we are less than mice in a maze, and the mind is the greatest of all mazes.”

Fengriffen, a novel of magic and madness, tells the tale of a husband deeply concerned over his wife’s sudden loathing of him, who hires a doctor in the emerging field of psychology to ascertain the cause. Doctor Pope, respected in the new field, arrives, tours the house and interviews Mr. Fengriffen and his wife, Catherine. He soon discovers Catherine believes herself to be under a curse and visited by demons, and the doctor must prove to Catherine and Fengriffen that this is all in her mind. Matters are complicated by Fengriffon’s deceased grandfather, who was involved in some nasty business that resulted in the curse being leveled at the family two generations passed.

Based on this story I’d guess Mr. Case is a very smart man, evidenced partially through extensive vocabulary but also through an effortless sense of heavy, dangerous atmosphere where light only falls in areas that accentuate the dark, as if progress isn't progress at all. In Fengriffen there is the sense that not only is all not well, but it never has been and can never be. A bit like Lovecraft, without the dry texture, in the vein of mankind being learned, practical and scientific, but befuddled and helpless in the face of occurrences that can’t be easily explained away. His use of language is evocative, but also free-form, allowing for associations we may not expect:

“The mind is the descendant of the thumb and the vocal chord, and a malformed child it has always been; a mistake of evolution with the unique ability to bring its own extinction.”

Yet another story that’s difficult to put down, this one’s worth looking into. It’s an excellent, somewhat hard to find read.

4+ stars

*from the upcoming Centipede release
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**my humble copy
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[bugen]

Children of the Black Sabbath – Anne Hébert

“But then you shouldn't have provoked God. His silence is sometimes preferable to His word.”

Non-linear storytelling is one thing, but when written in the style of nightmare, hallucination and madness, some stories can become entirely different monsters. Published in 1977 and written in French, the book reads as if it’s 100 years older, and that’s not a bad thing for the subject material.

Sister Julie of the Ladies of the Precious Blood begins having horrible visions of the man Adélard and the woman Philoméne, and the violent sexual and physical depravity they visit upon each other and their two children. These visions, along with marks mysteriously appearing on her body, serve to isolate and alienate her from her superiors in the nunnery.

The visions, however, may be more if Julie is actually the young girl and Joseph her brother in torment. Adélard, quite possibly Satan himself, and his wife have monstrous magical abilities that help to enslave the town(s) around them to their homemade liquor and bloody rituals. But as Philoméne is seducing her son at a ceremony, he denies her and the age-old tradition of the most powerful demons being born of a mother and her son is broken. Sister Julie, back in the present day and locked inside a room where she should be causing no further disturbances, embraces her grotesque power and begins taking revenge upon the sisters that treated her poorly. With the entire building under her sway the air itself is considered poisoned as despair threatens to take over.

This book is absolutely not for everyone, and some may consider it slow based on its dreamlike quality. Incest and rape are all over the place and we’re dealing with a physical manifestation of the Devil not on Earth briefly to steal a soul, but living here for hundreds of years. And all that that implies. It’s also filled with magic, and not the kind that creates rainbows, but no one’s throwing fireballs either. This is an earthy, decaying, disturbingly real form of magic born of sex and blood that is written well enough you can almost taste the filth through the visions. You may want to keep some Calvin and Hobbes around if attempting this one because it’s so dark and threatens madness as you follow along.

That said, there’s a lot to like here and much of it is because of the disturbing way the tale unfolds, never giving you much assurance as to what ground you’re on. Did she imagine that? Did they imagine she did that? Did I even read that right? The book unfolds like a nightmare which kept me fascinated and forging ahead.

“Woe unto us, for Satan has descended upon us with great fury.”

4- stars

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*The upcoming Centipede edition will be better than my copy